


Discordia

by Arukou



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: 5+1 Things, Asexuality, Asexuality Spectrum, Blind Date, But not in the way you're thinking, Canon-Typical Violence, Comedy of Errors, Dating, Didn't Know They Were Dating, Friendship, Gen, Gray Ace, Gray Asexuality, Male-Female Friendship, Natasha Feels, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-26
Updated: 2015-06-26
Packaged: 2018-04-06 06:25:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4211520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arukou/pseuds/Arukou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Come hell or high water, supervillains or radioactive creepy crawlies from the deep, Natasha Romanov will stop at nothing to get Steve Rogers a date.</p><p>(Five times Natasha tried to set Steve up and one time she succeeded.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pre-Op Planning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [katofrafters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/katofrafters/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, this'll be an easy prompt, I said. Just a couple thousand words of fluffy dribble, I said. Four months later and about three or four intensive rewrites and at last it's done. This isn't really supposed to have any pairings, but if you squint, you can kind of see Steve/Bucky. I adore reading fic about them, but writing them intimidates the crap out of me, so it's very, very, very vague. 
> 
> For [katofrafters](http://archiveofourown.org/users/katofrafters/pseuds/katofrafters), who gave me the prompt and also who is awesome and deserves all the things.

“He’s gotta be lonely, right?”  
  
“Well, that does tend to be the feeling when a guy wakes up seventy years in the future and almost all of his friends are dead. I’d be more worried if he wasn’t lonely.”  
  
“And all the friends he’s made are SHIELD degenerates. That can’t be good for his mental health.”  
  
“Speak for yourself. I am a perfectly average, normal, US citizen. My middle name is ‘Boring.’”  
  
“Your middle name is ‘I-fall-in-dumpsters-on-a-regular-basis’ and has been since you were thirteen.”  
  
“Well, it’s not like Captain America should be surrounded by average people anyway. He’s kind of the antithesis of average.”  
  
“But he wasn’t always that way. You and I, we’ve been fucked up our whole lives. He used to be a kid from Brooklyn. He probably needs that touch of normalcy.”  
  
“Have you tried asking him what he wants?”  
  
“What would be the fun in that?”  
  
“This is why we don’t let you get bored. You’re even more of a trouble-maker than I am.”  
  
“And yet somehow you always catch the blame for it.”  
  
“Gee, I wonder how that happens?”  
  
“Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies, Barton.”  
  
“You are such a cruel mistress.”  
  
“You love every minute of it.”  
  
“Mmmm. So you think the Captain needs some normal friends.”  
  
“Oh, not just friends.”  
  
“Nat. Nat, no. This never works out for you.”  
  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  
  
“Do you remember how this went down when you tried to set up Coulson? Do you remember the fallout? The fire? The fifteen thousand in collateral damage.”  
  
“That was a one-time thing.”  
  
“Agent May. ’08. Shark bite in South Africa.”  
  
“Two times does not a pattern…”  
  
“Bobbi in ’06. Three gunshot wounds and an international embarrassment in Bern.”  
  
“I don’t see your point.”  
  
“My point is, Nat, that I am the Cupid in our relationship. I am the one with the bow and arrow. You, on the other hand, are Discordia. You are the hurricane, the tsunami, the eruption. Don’t do this to Steve.”  
  
“You must admit, they all had fun.”  
  
“Just because May kept the shark’s teeth and made them into a necklace does not mean she had fun.”  
  
“Clearly you don’t know May as well as you think you do.”  
  
“Don’t do it, Nat.”  
  
“Don’t worry. I’ve got this under control.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://arukou-arukou.tumblr.com/) for more fannish squealing and writing snippets.


	2. Operation Pocket Rocket

“I can’t believe you were born on the Fourth of July.”  
  
Steve huffed into his mic and sat back in the tree. “I can’t help when I was born. That’s something that’s kind of out of my control.”  
  
“Got any plans, birthday boy?”  
  
“Not particularly. Stark said something about a party, but that was back just after the Chitauri. I think he forgot.” His mark moved behind a wall and Steve shifted precariously to try and follow the man. The branch swayed in protest under him, but stilled after a moment.  
  
“Watch it, Cap. You’re 220 pounds and that tree has seen better days.” Natasha went silent for a moment, though he could just hear the click of her heels on the shining flagstones as she trailed the mark from across the square. “How old will you be?”  
  
“According to my birth certificate, 94. According to my brain, 15.”  
  
“Still at that awkward stage, Steve? It’s ok. It happens to the best of us.”  
  
“I cannot even picture what you must have been like in puberty. I’m pretty sure you went from eight directly to eighteen.”  
  
Natasha hummed into her mic and then said, “He looks nervous. I think he knows we’re watching.”  
  
“Should we move on him?”  
  
“No. Let him panic. He’ll make mistakes. So anyway, the Fourth. Me and a few of the agents are doing firework watch down on the Brooklyn Bridge and then we’ll probably go out for drinks after. Wanna come? It’ll be better than one of Stark’s affairs.”  
  
“You speakin’ from experience?”  
  
“Something like that.”  
  
“Alright. Sure, why….shit! He’s moving. Go!”  
  
Through his com, he could hear Natasha pounding pavement as he hit the ground. “Tripp, you got intercept?”  
  
“On it!”  
  
Steve was already leaping from the tree, knees absorbing twenty feet worth of acceleration. He hit the ground running, vaulting tourists as he went rather than trying to duck around them. Tripp and Nat had it handled, though. By the time he reached the alley, the smuggler was already down on the ground, blood at his temple and cuffs on his hands. Tripp stood over him, smile wide, sweat making his skin sparkle in the bright sunlight. The case he’d been carrying was in Natasha’s possession, and Steve could just see the muzzle of a silencer poking from one zipper. She looked up at him with a grin. “So. The Fourth. You in?”  


* * *

  
  
“I still don’t see you.”  
  
“We’re waving sparklers. You can’t possibly miss Clint’s bright purple monstrosity.” Through the receiver, Steve heard a commotion and an indignant voice. “Honestly, where did you even find that thing?”  
  
“Wait. I think I see you.” Steve shied past a crowd of drunken frat boys, muscled through a couple of jerks harassing a woman with perhaps more force than strictly necessary, turning them toward the railing as he passed, and finally arrived at the small gathering of SHIELD agents. Natasha waved him over and passed him a paper party hat decked out with stars and stripes and sparkly tinsel. “Happy birthday, Steve.” He grinned sheepishly as she snapped the elastic under his chin and immediately took a photo with her smartphone.  
  
“Have you met everyone? Let me introduce you.” Before he could say a word, she took his elbow in a shockingly tight grip and hauled him toward the railing and the group of SHIELD agents. Individually, they were all non-descript and average looking, but with several them in a loose gaggle, Steve could pick out the ticks and movements that indicated training and a kind of self-awareness most civilians didn’t have. Natasha took him through the names and gave a general factoid, though never about their work stations. She tossed out things like “amateur gardener”, “volunteer fire rescue”, and “likes painting”, but she never sketched out mission ops or ranks. Steve could almost believe he was in a crowd of normal people.  
  
Clint passed Steve a sparkler and lit it off the tip of his own spitting purple firework. Against his will, a smile spread on Steve’s face as blue and white fire sprits danced in front of him.  
  
“Don’t let the cops see you,” a pretty, young woman in a white summer dress to his right said, giving him a smile. “They’re technically illegal.” Natasha had introduced her as Charise Gomez (reads extensively and knows all the best-sellers), and she sidled closer, her own sparkler lighting her face with green and white.  
  
Steve glanced up and down the bridge at all the other revelers and their illicit fireworks. “Don’t think they’ll ever make it to the center if they start arresting people now.”  
  
“I don’t know if there are any cops out there ballsy enough to arrest Captain America.”  
  
A little part of Steve shied away. Cap was the job, but sometimes he wished that all of SHIELD wasn’t so hyper aware of his status, his mythos. Charise immediately looked contrite, as though sensing she’d misstepped.  She sidled in closer and drew another sparkler from her purse. “Here. Yours is about to go out.”  
  
She came even closer, crowded against his side to block out the fierce easterly wind. Between them, the firework fizzled and then alit, bright yellow against the growing gloom. “There,” Charise said with a smile, showing off a gap-tooth that Steve found oddly charming. She passed him the sparkler and then shivered as the wind gusted stronger. As though it was the most natural thing in the world, she slipped her arm through his and pressed against his side, still shivering, but also smiling shyly up at him. He could feel a blush heating his cheeks, but in the dark, Charise probably couldn’t see it at all. Steve stood stiffly, unsure of what to do with his hand, whether or not he shouldn’t maybe crowd closer and try and take more of the wind for her.  
  
“So, uh, Steve. What are your hobbies?”  
  
Steve’s tongue, already tied in a knot by her proximity, blurted “Nudes.” and then immediately ducked his head, hating the way his cheeks flushed hot. Three or so years (or seventy or so, but who was counting) since he first met Peggy Carter, and he still didn’t know how to talk to women.  
  
“I…I beg your pardon?”  
  
“Shit. I’m sorry. That’s not…I mean I draw. I’m takin’ a class. We’re…we’re doing figure studies,” he finished weakly, his free hand rubbing at the back of his head. “I’m sorry,” he said again after a moment, moving to tug his arm away.  
  
“No, that’s fine. Relax. I’m not about to bite. Yet anyway.”  
  
Steve looked up in time to see a spark of that same spitfire that used to light up Peggy’s eyes, and he couldn’t decide whether that made him morose or terrified. But Charise was smiling prettily up at him, her burgundy lipstick dark against her face, so he pulled a tight smile of his own and reached for a different conversation topic.  
  
“What department are you in?” A moment too late, he wondered if that was taboo. Natasha had avoided work talk and it seemed like maybe she had good reason. But Charise just smiled, a hint of relief in her eyes.  
  
“Human resources. Please don’t hold it against me. I’ve asked to be transferred so many times, I can’t even tell you.” She looked up at him with a thoughtful glance, and then something in her expression changed. “How would you feel about ditching the group after this and grabbing something to eat?”  
  
For a moment, it didn’t click in Steve’s head. And then he got it. He really got it. “Oh. Oh I…Uh…”  
  
He was saved from answering by the first boom of a screamer. Relieved, he turned to watch the show, only to realize that the fireball in the sky was very likely not a part of the evening fireworks display. Shouts erupted from the east end of the bridge, and Natasha appeared on his right, silent and quick as a ghost, a taser disk in hand. “Maybe some other time,” he said apologetically to Charise, and then took off in a dead run. He could just make out electronic voices intoning “Kneel before Doom.” Natasha was right with him.  
  
“What did you think of her?” she asked as they ran, drawing closer and closer to the screams.  
  
“Is this really the time?” he shot back, vaulting a taxi.  
  
“No time like the present,” she said, easily copying his leap and gaining an extra two feet on him in the process.  
  
“She seemed…I mean…I’m not…”  
  
Even as they ran toward danger, Natasha somehow found time to turn to him with a bemused look, smirking as his cheeks grew redder and his tongue fumbled more.  
  
“Alright, Cap. I’ll get details later. For now, think about how you’re gonna fight a bunch of steel-enforced robots with just your bare hands.”  
  
With a huff of relief, Steve complied, staring at the steadily advancing line of Doom-bots. At least fighting was a thing that came second-nature to him.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://arukou-arukou.tumblr.com/) for more fannish squealing and writing snippets.


	3. Operation Bikini Bottom

Natasha trotted up to him as he handed off his mission duffle and uniform. He eyed her warily, but smiled easily enough. “Steve, how was Beirut?”  
  
“Hot and muggy, but what else is new?”  
  
“It’s August. Everywhere in the northern hemisphere is hot and muggy.”  
  
He grunted noncommittally and set off toward his closet of an office to get started on the paperwork. “So Clint said you got a little post-mission leave, and so does he, and I need a vacation. How do you feel about the beach?”  
  
Steve fixed her with a critical gaze, looking her up and down and then up again. “Depends. Is it just gonna be the three of us? The last group gathering we tried didn’t go so well.” They both grimaced, thinking back on the way Steve’s hands had been mangled for a week and how Natasha’s eyebrows had been singed off by a wayward fire blast.  
  
“No, no,” she assured after a moment. “Just us.”  
  
Steve hummed non-committally, reaching up to loosen his shield harness. Natasha batted his hands away and started doing it for him, her fingers quick and efficient on the cinches.  
  
“Come on, Steve. Even Captain America deserves a break. You’ve barely taken a weekend off since the Chitauri.” He grimaced and dropped his shoulders in relief as the tight harness loosened, rolling the bones and listening to them crack before slipping his arms free.  
  
“I don’t know. I’m not really…a vacation kind of guy.”  
  
“Everyone’s a vacation kind of guy, Steve. You just have to change your point of view a little. Stop searching for battle lines and start searching for tan lines. Splash around in the waves a little. You ever been to Cape Cod? It’s nice. We’ll do a barbecue or something.”  
  
Behind Natasha, Clint passed Steve’s doorway, and when he saw the two of them talking, he abruptly backtracked until he was in full view, eyes passing back and forth between them critically. With a level of energy Steve thought wholly unnecessary, he began frantically gesturing, waving his hands in front of his face and shaking his head back and forth. He mimed a series of violent gestures, hands flashing what Steve occasionally recognized as sign language, but for the most part simply seemed to be a very vehement “ _No_.” By the time he was choking himself, both Steve and Natasha were watching him with raised eyebrows.  
  
He paused mid-choke with his tongue sticking out and quickly straightened. “Ahem. Hey guys. What’s shaking?”  
  
“I should be asking you that,” Natasha said, eyes narrowed and threat evident in her voice.  
  
Steve looked between the two of them, and felt a smirk spreading across his face against his better judgment. “You said Clint’s coming to?”  
  
“I am? Coming where?”  
  
“He is. Definitely.”  
  
The super soldier fixed Clint with a considering expression and then smiled wickedly, fingers moving to loosen his utility belt. “Cape Cod sounds nice. Clint seems like he’s really looking forward to it.”   
  
The sniper blanched and held up his hands, placating. “Steve, buddy, pal. You don’t know what you’re saying. Me and beaches. We don’t mix. It’s like oil and water. It always ends in tears. I swear. Nice pool any old day. Stark has a pool. Let’s go to Stark’s.”  
  
“But Clint,” Steve said, bringing out his best puppy dog eyes, “Natasha promised it would be the three of us. Together. At the beach.”  
  
If anything, the archer paled more and then turned on Natasha. “I’ll get you back for this,” he said, brandishing a finger, and then dashed away before the spy could get the last word in.  
  
“What is it you’re planning that’s got him so nervous?” Steve asked, carefully sliding his body armor over his head. Natasha was still staring at the door, her eyes narrowed dangerously, but then she turned to him and smiled, and he would have believed her expression completely harmless, if not for Clint’s performance.  
  
“I’m not planning anything but eating delicious pork ribs and working on my tan.” She patted his back, heedless of the sweat marks along his shoulder where the harness pressed in. “I’ll text you the details.  
  
Steve watched her go and then shrugged once, taking both his harness and belt and, draping them across the back of his chair. Whatever Natasha had planned, it was probably more or less harmless. Probably.  
  


* * *

  
  
“I hate you both.”  
  
“You love us.”  
  
“Nope. Pretty sure this feeling is loathing.”  
  
Steve looked in the rear-view mirror and smiled, teeth white beneath his sunglasses. “Come on Clint, it’s not so bad.”  
  
Natasha added, “The beach will be fun, Clint. Fun. That thing we used to have.”  
  
“I have fun. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  
  
“I’m talking about outdoor fun. With sunlight and sand and animals.”  
  
Clint leaned forward from the back seat and thrust his fist out, counting off on his fingers. “Sunlight burns my delicate, beautiful skin, and I need to maintain my complexion. Sand gets everywhere. I mean everywhere. I hate finding little granules where the sun don’t shine, and frankly,” he said, poking Natasha, “I don’t know how you ladies can stand it. It’s gotta be worse for you. Animals are evil. Seagulls are rats with wings. They will steal the hotdog right out of your hand. And there are sharks at beaches. And jellyfish. And octopi.”  
  
“Octopuses,” Natasha corrected, shoving his hands away. “Quit being such a baby. We’re already here, so you better find some way to entertain yourself that doesn’t involve your DS.”  
  
Steve parked the car at the little bungalow they’d rented and then proceeded to unload the bags and portable grill. “Food first?” he asked Natasha, hoisting the grill and charcoal over his shoulders.  
  
“Sounds good. If we start it up now, the coals will be hot enough to cook something by dinner time.”  
  
Dragging his feet, Clint followed behind them, looking put out until the moment he actually hit the sand. Then he dumped his duffle to the side and ran out ahead of them straight into the water.  
  
“He’s like a twelve year-old, I swear,” Natasha said, hitching her weight onto one hip and watching with just the tiniest hint of a smile.  
  
“He’s your twelve year-old, though. And a sweet one at that.”  
  
She fixed him with a look he could only describe as mysterious and then set her luggage onto the outdoor deck. With an expression that would be impish on any other woman, she turned back to him, said, “Last one in’s a rotten egg,” and took off like a shot.  
  
Steve gave a little indignant grunt, settled the grill and charcoal, and then chased after her. With his speed, he caught up just as they hit the water, scooping her up as he went and dumping her the moment he was in up to his chest. Natasha gave an affronted squeal as she went tumbling, but somehow she hooked a knee around the back of his neck and brought him down with her, so it was all fair in the end. Clint joined them in their splash fight cum impromptu sparring match and they forgot about the barbecue entirely.  
  
It wasn’t until someone shouted a greeting that they let up, and they turned to face a set of four people, two men and two women. “Natalie? Is that you? I haven’t seen you in ages!”  
  
Natasha shaded her eyes and looked up to the newcomers. “Xander?”  
  
“The one and only.”  
  
Behind her, Clint and Steve traded looks, and Clint in particular looked like he wanted to run for the hills as fast as he could. Natasha glanced back at them and mouthed, Play along, before moving through the water toward the group of strangers.  
  
“Stark still treating you well?” she asked, squeezing out her hair.  
  
“Better than ever. I’m told I have you to thank for that, even though you jumped ship on us.” The four newcomers waded into the shallows to meet her, and after a moment, Steve followed, Clint reluctantly taking up the rear. They hadn’t had Steve doing a lot of undercover work, given his recognizable face and build, but he’d been at SHIELD long enough to recognize civilian cover. He plastered a smile on his face and drew even with Natasha as she said, “What can I say? When Steve Jobs comes calling, it’s hard to refuse.”  
  
“After that disaster of a party, I can’t really blame you. But I’m being rude. I think you’d met Lin, right?”  
  
“We were in the Ladies’ Happy Hour Hoppers together. G&T Wednesdays.” The two women embraced, kissing cheeks and grinning. “Is Barb still chasing after Happy Hogan?”  
  
“I think that ship has sailed, what with his job transfer. He’s gone on a total head-trip. Driving everyone mad. Honestly, I wish you were still around to put him in his place.”  
  
“And this,” continued Xander when it was clear they were finished, “is Sasha, my cousin, and her boyfriend, Derrick. I can’t believe we ran into each other. I guess it really is a small world.”  
  
“Yeah, what a coincidence,” Clint said under his breath, but quickly doubled over when Natasha’s elbow connected with his stomach.  
  
“Oh, I’m sorry, Connor,” she said, hand going to her lips in what would have been totally believable worry, if Steve wasn’t aware of the fact that Natasha had never accidentally elbowed anyone in her life. His brows drew down in suspicion as Nat immediately leaned into Clint, hands on his torso in what could only be mock worry. “Must’ve slipped. Think you’ll be alright?”  
  
From his angle, Steve could see they were having a silent conversation with their eyes, but he couldn’t quite get the gist of it all. After a moment, they straightened again, Clint looking resigned as Natasha turned back to the other group. “Here, let me introduce you. Everyone, this is Connor and this is Stanley. We work together in the Apple office.”  
  
Steve nearly mouthed over his new name, but Xander had already drawn in close offering a hand, so he swallowed down his confusion and smiled again. “Nice to meet you,” he said, giving a firm grip and hoping this man didn’t pay too much attention to the news. Xander was frowning and looking him up and down. “Say, don’t I know you from somewhere? Featured in a Forbes article or something?”  
  
“Something like that,” he muttered and stepped quickly away, offering his hand to the others. Clint traded handshakes as well, all of his previous reluctance hidden behind an amiable smile.  
  
“You guys here on vacation?” Natasha asked when all the pleasantries were done with.  
  
“Yeah. Lin and I won the office sweepstakes. You know Stark’s always generous with those things.”  
  
“And you didn’t bring, Genine, Lin? I’m surprised.”  
  
“Oh,” the other woman said. “Genine and I actually called it quits a few months back. I’m on the market again.” She grinned, eyes passing over them all, lingering longest on Steve, and he felt a little worm of discomfort in his stomach. She looked like she wanted to eat him, and while she seemed nice, he was not entirely sure if he wanted to be eaten. Especially not when he’d given her a false name and back story.  
  
“Well, if you’re on vacation, care to join us for a bit of fun?”   
  
“Fun?” Steve asked without thinking, and Natasha promptly splashed him, chilly salt water dripping from his face.  
  
That was all it took for the water war to re-ensue, the seven of them laughing breathlessly as the tide came in. Steve wasn’t exactly sure how she maneuvered it, but eventually Lin managed to transform the game into chicken fight, and moreover, she managed to snag him as a partner, clambering onto his shoulders like he was a jungle gym. Steve blushed through the entire thing, though he still did his best to topple Clint and Natasha in spite of his embarrassment.  
  
By the time they all trudged up the beach again, the sun was low in the sky and they were bedraggled and soaked, but laughing amicably. “We were going to barbecue for dinner,” Clint said, wringing out the hem of his trunks. “You guys care to join us?”  
  
“That would be lovely,” Lin said, her eyes lingering on Steve with that same hunger from earlier. “We brought beers. We can just split them with you. And we got a watermelon, didn’t we Xander?”  
  
“That sounds great,” Natasha volunteered, stepping up. “Stan, why don’t you go help her haul their cooler over. Connor and I will fire up the grill.”  
  
“But I thought…” Steve started looking forlornly toward the grill; Clint was already sprinting off, though, feet churning through the sand.  
  
“Thanks for helping with the heavy lifting, Stan. You know how my knees are!” he tossed over his shoulder, even as his long stride ate up the ground beneath him. Lin fixed Steve with a positively predatory look and gave him a little shove in the back.  
  
“Come on then,” she said, giving him a smirk nearly as dangerous as Natasha’s. “You can get the cooler and I’ll just…  
  
“Holy shit, what the hell is that?” cried Derrick, pointing out at sea. Steve turned in time to see a huge set of writhing yellow tentacles emerge from the shallows, wriggling and slithering over the rocks. He snapped into battle mode with something that was almost relief, his mind already calculating how best to distract it until reinforcements came.  
  
“You four,” he said, voice tight and commanding, “into the cottage now. I don’t know if there’s a basement, but if there is, you get your asses down there. Nat, I need my shield and then I need you to call in SHIELD. Clint!” he called, raising his voice to be heard over the stretch of beach between them, “I hope you brought your exploding arrows!”  
  
“Never leave home without ‘em!” Clint shouted back, already diving for his duffle.  
  
It took more than an hour for reinforcements to arrive, during which time Steve, Clint, and Natasha were bashed, bruised, crushed, squeezed, and in one harrowing moment, nearly snipped in half by a razor sharp beak. By the time heavy artillery fire from a quinjet took the thing down, the sun had set and stars were twinkling. It would have been picturesque if it weren’t for the cephalopod gore strewn over the beach. Steve slumped onto a rock, covered head to foot in blue ichor, watching the squid’s corpse twitch in the last of its death throes. From his vantage point, he could see Jasper Sitwell forcing Natasha’s four friends into signing mounds upon mounds of nondisclosure agreements. He ran a finger along the edge of his shield, sticky with blood and worse, and looked out at the ocean.  
  
“That was not how I pictured spending my vacation,” Clint said, settling down on the other side of Steve. Of the three of them, he was the least damaged, his arrows giving him the advantage of range. But the explosions had thrown squid pieces far and wide and even Clint hadn’t escaped the mess completely. A moment later, Natasha settled on Steve’s other side, tossing her injured leg onto his knees.  
  
“Well, at least the civilians didn’t get hurt,” Steve said offhandedly, looking sidelong at Natasha.   
  
Her face gave away nothing as she said, “When you work for Iron Man, you tend to prepare for the worst case scenarios.”  
  
“Hell of a coincidence they were up here on vacation the same week we were.”  
  
“Yep,” she said, eyebrows raised as though to say, _I had absolutely no idea they would be here_. “Shame, too. Lin’s pretty nice. She’s assistant head of finances, and she knows how to put Tony in his place.”   
  
“Bet she knows how to put lots of things in their places,” Clint grumbled, glaring over at the civilians. Lin looked relatively unruffled, but Xander and Derrick were huddled together, eyes wide and faces pale. Sasha mostly looked put out about her swimsuit, which had been ruined when she slipped in a puddle of squid gore.  
  
“Well,” said Steve after a moment, “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m starving. Clean up and grab some grub?”  
  
Clint stared at Steve incredulously. “You want to…stay?”  
  
He smiled sharply at Clint, one eyebrow raised in challenge. “Well, we are on vacation,” he said with a shrug, gently setting Natasha’s foot down before rising and hefting his shield. “I think I’m in the mood for calamari pizza.”  
  
Natasha laughed and Clint glowered as he stepped away, back straight and shoulders even. Agent Fields from operations intercepted him for a report, dragging him toward the jet.   
  
When Steve was out of sight, Natasha turned to Clint with a thoughtful look on her face. “Maybe I’m being too subtle about this,” she said thoughtfully.  
  
“Are you shitting me? He knows you’re up to something. You ever stop to consider maybe he doesn’t want a date?”   
  
“Clint, the guy spent his last weekend off—which was over a month ago, I might add—eating popcorn and watching Netflix. You know as well as I do it’s important to have a life outside of the job. Especially for people as optimistic as Steve is.”  
  
 _Says the woman consumed by the job_ , Clint signed warily, watching as Fields approached them.  
  
Natasha just shrugged and stood, setting off at a slow limp. “I think I’m gonna pull out the big guns.” She said over her shoulder, flashing him a tiny, dangerous smile.  
  
“Fuck. My life,” Clint moaned, collapsing onto the sand as though his strings had been cut.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://arukou-arukou.tumblr.com/) for more fannish squealing and writing snippets.


	4. Operation Nutcracker

“You’re coming to the SHIELD Christmas party, right?”  
  
Steve looked up from his desk to see Natasha framed in the doorway, decked out in her catsuit and a festive Santa hat, a rakish cut over her cheek. He raised an eyebrow, signed another mission report with a flourish, and stamped the date. “Did you just get back from interrogating Santa Claus? I thought he’d put up more of a fight.”  
  
“He was a pushover. Are you going or not?”  
  
“Wasn’t planning on it. I’ve got a date with the Godfather movies.”  
  
“You’ll hate them.”  
  
“You’re so sure?” he said, stamping another file.  
  
“Steve,” she said, leaning on his desk and fixing him with a more serious look. “I know you haven’t got any Christmas plans day of, and no one should spend the holidays alone. At least get a little holiday cheer.”  
  
“You’re spending the holidays on stakeout in Slovenia. Don’t talk to me about how I should be celebrating.”  
  
“But I’m spending it with Clint at my side, and we will be doing what we do best.”  
  
“Shoehorning friends into social obligations they don’t really want?”  
  
“Making international terrorists cry for their mommies.”  
  
Steve’s lips twitched, despite his best intentions to give her no leeway, and he quickly typed a name into his database to try and hide his amusement. Natasha smiled down at him, posture relaxed and loose like a big cat just after a kill. A moment later, the Santa hat descended over his eyes, smelling of Natasha’s shampoo and cinnamon. “Have you,” he said, taking in another whiff of the cheap polyester, “have you been making cookies?”  
  
“I’ve heard food is the best way to a man’s heart.”  
  
Lifting the hat away from one eye, Steve glanced up at her. “Your cookies are not good enough to tempt me to the party.”  
  
“No, they’re not. But Clint’s are.”  
  
His mouth started watering at the very thought of it. He’d had Clint’s cookies. He understood why fist fights broke out in SHIELD hallways when the sniper brought in a fresh batch. And Clint only baked when he was in the mood for it, which was once in a blue moon. Or more likely, when Natasha threatened him into it.  
  
“How many cookies are we talking?”  
  
“I think he’s planning on making about five dozen for the party? Maybe more.”  
  
“You’re telling me I have to share?”  
  
“I could maybe get him to make you a special batch or two. Cookies just for Cap.”  
  
Steve leaned back in his chair and raised an eyebrow at her. “Is this bribery Agent Romanov?”  
  
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Captain Rogers,” she replied, turning her head up and looking superior. “But if I knew what you were talking about, I’d say I could get you three dozen. A dozen chocolate chip, a dozen ginger snap, and a dozen of Clint’s special caramel coconut surprise.”  
  
“Make it two dozen of the caramel coconut and promise me I can leave after two hours.”  
  
“Done.”  
  
“Delivered to my door no later than December 20th.”  
  
“Of course,” she said, smirking and hitching her hip on the desk. “Did I mention it’s an ugly sweater party?”  
  
“What’s that?”  
  
If anything, her smirk deepened into a predatory flash of teeth. “Oh, I’m going to have fun shopping with you.”  
  


* * *

  
  
“I can’t believe I’m wearing this.”  
  
“Oh, come on, Steve. You look adorable. Like a big puffy abominable snowman.”  
  
“The adorabonimable snowman,” Clint said gamely, and both Steve and Natasha fixed him with a look. “Captain Yeti? Capsicle? Wait. That one’s Stark’s. Snow-Cap-tain? Captain Abominable? Cap-Taun-Taun?”  
  
“Did you understand that reference?” Natasha asked, pulling at his elbow to get him to walk faster.  
  
“Regrettably.” He glanced down at the fuzzy white monstrosity, the big stuffed carrot sticking straight out from his sternum.  
  
“It looks like I have an orange erection springing from my ribcage,” he groaned into his palm, dragging his feet just because he could.  
  
“Is Captain America allowed to say ‘erection’? I’m pretty sure there’s a federal law against that.”  
  
“Clearly you’re not hanging around him enough,” Natasha replied, shoving the door open. The SHIELD cafeteria was decked out in multi-colored lights, and Christmas trees stood at each end of the serving counter. Someone had gamely strung fake snow from the rafters, and every now and then a cotton fluff ball fell from above onto someone’s head. The guests themselves were a sea of hyper-saturation, glaring holiday colors standing brightly against the utilitarian, gray décor.  
  
Hill approached them pink-cheeked and uncharacteristically smiling, her blue and white sweater blaringly bright.  
  
“I didn’t know you were Jewish, Hill,” Clint said, leaning in.   
  
“You could fill an ocean with the things you don’t know about me, Barton. And I’ll be keeping it that way, thank you. White elephant gifts under the tree on the left. Help yourselves to punch and eggnog, but I’d avoid the deviled eggs. Perez down in Logistics and Planning made them, and I know his fridge has been on the fritz for a week.”  
  
The three of them shuddered in unison and went to deposit their gifts as well as Clint’s massive batch of cookies. The moment they’d dropped their packages under the tree, Natasha steered them toward the refreshments, snagging cups of eggnog for all of them. “In the holiday spirit,” she said, smiling sweetly.  
  
He looked down at the drink suspiciously and then back at her. “What’d you put in it?”  
  
“Absolutely nothing,” she said, turning and pulling them through the milling agents. Steve looked helplessly to Clint, who was trailing after them, and the sniper shrugged, sipping at his own drink. He peeled off, though, halfway across the cafeteria to go and talk to a tall blonde agent Steve vaguely recognized from the rosters.  
  
Natasha sighed at Steve’s eyes and shook her head. “Honestly, I don’t know why he keeps trying for Bobbi. She’ll give him a concussion long before she sleeps with him.”  
  
“I don’t understand you two,” Steve said in reply, glancing back at Clint again. Bobbi looked distinctly non-plussed, fingers tapping at her elbow.  
  
“It’s better you don’t,” Natasha said, though she was smiling as she spoke. Steve returned the grin and realized too late that she looked like the cat who got the cream. “Come on. The Libyan team is in, and I haven’t seen Aya for six months.”  
  
She steered them both to a slightly more subdued group near one of the Christmas trees, breaking away from Steve to throw her arms around a short, wide-hipped Middle Eastern woman. He watched with unabashed fascination as she was more openly effervescent than he’d ever seen her.  
  
“Might be the eggnog,” a big, black man in an electric green Christmas tree sweater said. “It’s spiked like Prohibition’s back in style. Had to toss mine out.” He offered a hand, flashing a white smile at Steve. “Ahmed Idrisi.”  
  
“Steve Rogers,” he returned, taking the larger man’s grip. Ahmed’s hand was dry and thickly-calloused, but warm in Steve’s grip. “And I seriously doubt it’s the alcohol. I’ve seen her put away a full bottle of vodka all by herself and barely blink an eye.”  
  
“Yeah, but that’s Natasha on the job. Natasha off the clock gets drunk just like everyone else.”  
  
“Almost everyone,” Steve said unthinkingly, but Ahmed only smiled again, his eyes twinkling with shared amusement. Self-consciously, Steve ducked his head and looked for a way to change the conversation’s direction. “So you’re in from Libya.”  
  
“Got called out on a special mission to Spain. Normally we’re on bomb control and international super-terrorism detail, but there was potential alien tech in Barcelona and the southern European team was still out on London clean-up.”  
  
“And that puts you through to HQ?”  
  
“Debrief on alien tech isn’t allowed over the net, no matter how secure. In person or bust. Can’t say that I’m sad to be in the US, though. It’s been a while.”  
  
“You originally from here?”  
  
“Yes and no. Grew up in Tunisia and moved to the US with my parents when I was ten. Got citizenship when my parents naturalized.”  
  
“Must be nice to be back over Christmas.”  
  
“My family doesn’t celebrate, actually, though I like the holiday all the same.” He gestured down to his sweater and grinned. “We’re Muslim, but the season’s still got that something for me. I think it’s the snow. And all the music. I always liked the Christmas music, even if we weren’t really decking the halls or anything.”  
  
“Are your parents still here?”  
  
“Yeah, it’s been great, getting to see them. I never get to tell them much about my work, but it does keep me away.”  
  
“You must miss ‘em a lot.”  
  
Ahmed sighed and shrugged, his gaze on Natasha as she practically danced circles around Aya, rosy-cheeked and genuinely happy. Steve followed his line of sight and felt something warm in his heart; he was suddenly glad he’d agreed to come.  
  
“Sometimes. But I like the excitement of the job, and I like feeling like we’re making a difference. Until recently, most of the State-side jobs were desk jobs, you know?”  
  
Steve hummed in agreement, tapping his finger against his spiked eggnog. For all that he was sent on international ops on a regular basis, it seemed like he ended up spending weeks at a time at his desk anyway. He glanced up and caught Ahmed watching him, dark eyes knowing and warm.  
  
“You could transfer out. Africa gets short-shifted on staff a lot of the time, and we could use someone with actual talent.”  
  
“They’d never let me go,” Steve said, and cautiously sipped his eggnog. Cheap bourbon burned in his mouth, and he fought the instant urge to cough, swallowing with a grimace. “That…” he said, wheezing slightly through the taste, “is awful. Turpentine tastes better.”  
  
“You’ve drunk turpentine?”  
  
“Not on purpose. I used to paint. You end up with stuff in your mouth you don’t want to think about.” He looked up again to see half the Libyan contingency staring at him, and realized there’d been a sudden lull in the cheery holiday music just as he’d started his last sentence.  
  
“Context is everything, Steve,” Natasha teased, and Steve’s cheeks immediately burst into flame, heat crawling up his ears and down his neck. The collective agents started laughing as he ducked his head and tried to melt into the floor. It would’ve been easier if he was 5’1” again. Damage done, Natasha twirled into him, grinning as she bumped his shoulder.  
  
“You’re terrible,” he mumbled into his cup, tossing back the rest so he wouldn’t have to engage in conversation for a moment. Over Natasha’s head, Ahmed’s eyes were shining, white teeth flashing against his coffee skin.  
  
“Oh, come on, Steve. It’s all in good fun. Let’s see if we can find you a drink that doesn’t taste like turpentine. Coming with, Ahmed, Aya?”  
  
The taller man grinned and stepped forward. “I doubt there’s anything left that hasn’t been spiked, but I’ll come. Steve seems like he could use a bodyguard.”  
  
Aya and Natasha hooked arms and started off through the crowd, Steve and Ahmed trailing behind. “So,” Ahmed began, “I’m here through the end of January. I don’t suppose you’d want to grab a drink or something while we have the chance?”  
  
“Sure,” Steve said, feeling slightly recovered from his mortification. “That sounds nice. I…” He stopped mid-sentence when in front of him Natasha and Aya turned and kissed each other, both grinning like idiots. “Uh…”  
  
Ahmed poked him in the shoulder and pointed up, and Steve felt a creeping dread settle in the pit of his stomach. Still, like watching a train wreck in slow motion, he couldn’t seem to stop himself from looking up and seeing a sprig of mistletoe, hanging gamely from one of the lower tangles of fake snow. Stifling a groan, Steve dropped his gaze down to catch Ahmed looking at him with a considering gaze.  
  
“I, uh…” Steve started, “I don’t suppose that silly kissing tradition has fallen by the wayside in the last seventy years, has it?”  
  
“I think Natasha and Aya just gave you the answer to that question,” said Ahmed, giving Steve an appreciative once over. “You game?”  
  
Steve felt the inevitable blush rising in his cheeks and wondered what he’d done to deserve this. It wasn’t so much that he was nervous to kiss a man, but more than he was nervous to kiss anyone in front of all these agents, who suddenly seemed to have taken a great deal of interest in the fact that Captain America had been caught under the mistletoe. He could feel their sharp eyes on him, waiting with baited breath. Someone gave an encouraging wolf whistle and a ripple of laughter rose from the crowd.  
  
“I suppose,” said Steve, shrugging and blushing even harder.   
  
Ahmed smiled softly, took a step forward, and put a gentle hand on Steve’s shoulder. “You’re really sure?” he said more quietly, glancing around. “I don’t want you doing anything you’re uncomfortable with.”  
  
From over his shoulder, he heard Clint yell, “Lay one on ‘im, big guy!”  
  
“It’s fine,” Steve said, gritting his teeth and telling himself it was just like taking a dare from Bucky. He could look at it as a challenge, something people didn’t think he could do. Nodding once, decisively, Steve stepped in as well. Ahmed leaned forward, and Steve was watching his lips, unsure who should be leading this and whether he should go left or right, when the carrot nose abruptly halted Ahmed’s progress. They looked down in unison at the bright orange fabric jabbing into Ahmed’s Christmas-tree-bedecked chest, and Steve felt his face burn like the sun as first a chuckle and then a roar of laughter built in the agents around them.  
  
“Someone’s happy to see you!” “He’s a show-er, not a grow-er!” “Is that a carrot in your pocket?” Dick jokes flew around them, and after a few more mortified seconds, Steve felt his mouth twitch up until suddenly he was bent double laughing, cheeks aching with the unfamiliar pull and skin shining red as a tomato.  
  
Ahmed was smiling, glistening teeth and crinkled eyes, belly vibrating with a low chuckle. “Well,” he said, putting an arm around Steve’s shoulders and leading him to the refreshments, “we’ll have another chance when we catch that drink.”  
  
Steve glanced up, and wondered when he would start catching social cues that he was agreeing to dates and not friendly outings. Ahmed must have seen something in his face, though because the larger man’s smile fell. “Did you change your mind about that?”  
  
“No,” Steve said quickly, shaking his head earnestly. “It’s just that…I guess I was thinking…what I mean to say is…”   
  
Ahmed was smiling again catching, soft and a little disappointed. “You’re not gay?”  
  
“No, that’s…well, I don’t…” Steve huffed a harsh breath through his teeth and shook out his shoulders once. “I’m not really sure what I am, but that’s not what I was saying,” he said, earnestly looking up at Ahmed. “But what I am sure of is that I'm not actually looking for a significant other at the moment.”  
  
“Oh,” Ahmed, said, eyes passing over Steve from head-to-toe. “You’re not looking for something less serious either? Scratch the itch?”  
  
“No,” Steve said, “I’m sorry.”  
  
“No need to be sorry, Steve. But would you still be willing to catch that drink? As friends?”  
  
“Yeah,” Steve said with a smile, his eyes shy but a little hopeful. “Yeah I'd like that.” With a spring in his step, he turned to grab a cup of punch. He raised the glass to Natasha, who was watching him with something between frustration and approval, and then raised the glass to his lips. Alcohol hit him in the nose before it even reached his taste buds and he pulled the cup away, sticking out his tongue in disgust. “Ugh. Cheap vodka.”  
  


* * *

  
  
“I can’t believe that stupid sweater robbed you of a truly wonderful experience.”  
  
“You picked out the sweater. You want someone to blame, you should be looking in the mirror. And how would you know it’s wonderful? Ahmed said he’s gay.”  
  
“He and Clint made out at Christmas last year. I trust his opinion.”  
  
Steve raised an eyebrow at her and then glanced meaningfully to the cookie boxes in her hand.  
  
“Yeah, yeah, you glutton. Four dozen as promised, plus a bonus dozen because Clint said he hasn’t laughed that hard in years.” She set the cookies down in front of him, and the caramelized sugar scent hit him like a ton of bricks.  
  
“Tell him thanks,” he said, digging out a chocolate chip and settling down to his paperwork.  
  
“Can I have one?”  
  
Steve looked up as Natasha hitched her hip on his desk, her arms crossed and face done up in a nearly convincing pout. “If you tell me one thing.”  
  
“Just the one, Steve?”  
  
“Just the one.”  
  
Natasha snatched a chocolate chip cookie from the batch and popped it in her mouth. “Shoot.”  
  
“Have you been trying to set me up on dates?”  
  
“Define ‘set up on dates.’”  
  
“Nat.”  
  
She huffed sigh and crossed her arms, licking at the cookie grease on her fingers. “I may have steered you into the path of several people I knew to be eligible and mentioned you were on the market. Well. I mentioned it to Ahmed and Charise. I knew Lin would go after you with no encouragement whatsoever.”  
  
“Why didn’t you just say anything?”  
  
She raised an eyebrow at him, her mouth in a skeptical tilt. “Would you have let me set you up if I had?”  
  
Steve grimaced and hunched into his desk chair, looking down at the keyboard under his fingers. “Maybe?”  
  
“Steve.”  
  
“I’m just…I’m not sure if I'm ready for dating, Nat. I don’t…and I…”  
  
Natasha’s expression softened, and she put a hand on his shoulder. “How about this?” she said. “From now on, I suggest people to you and you can tell me whether or not they interest you. Sound fair?”  
  
Steve frowned, and his hand shifted until it was fingering something in his pocket. “And you’ll respect my decision if I say no?”  
  
“It's only fair,” Natasha said, squeezing his shoulder more tightly, fingers firm against the tense muscle.  
  
“Sounds like a deal then.”  
  
“Trade another cookie to seal it?”  
  
“Not on your life.”  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://arukou-arukou.tumblr.com/) for fannish squealing and writing snippets.


	5. Operation Cupid's Buns

“So,” said Natasha, watching him sharply as the quinjet ascended, “You got any plans for Valentine’s Day?”  
  
“An obscenely large box of chocolates with my name on it,” Steve replied, adjusting his shield harness and wishing the plane would level off already so he could stand up. “And don’t you dare try and convince me otherwise.”  
  
Natasha smiled innocently and tilted her head to the side. “Now why would I do that, Rogers?”  
  
“Clint is right. You’re cursed. Maybe you should let him try and fix me up with someone.”  
  
“A few bad dates does not a trend make.”  
  
“Nat, since Christmas you’ve set me up on six separate dates and every. Single. One. Of them ended in disaster. If I start counting the ones from before I knew you were fixing me up, then it really starts to stack up against you, you know?”  
  
“You never did tell me how the one with Mea finished.”  
  
“Uh…I didn’t know people did that to each other’s ears. It was weird.”  
  
“Oh,” Natasha said, frowning off to the side, hair curtaining her face for a moment. “Huh. I’ll have to talk to her.”  
  
“I’m not going out with her again, Nat.”  
  
“No, I just mean…someone should tell her. Or teach her. Or something.”  
  
Steve grimaced and looked into the belly of the quinjet, where the rest of the STRIKE team sat in wait, looking dark and unimpressed. He and Natasha sat separately, and he was grateful they were out of hearing distance because it was bad enough that all the paper pushers were gossiping about his love life now. He didn’t need his troops doing the same.  
  
Natasha turned back to him, her face thoughtful. “You really haven’t had a spark with a single one of them?”  
  
“Not a one,” Steve said, ducking his head awkwardly and twisting his hands around the straps in the shield. His cheeks pinked a little and the ding for the level off pinged through the coms. With more speed than was probably appropriate, he ripped his safety harness free and headed to the netting holding their weapons’ cache, trying to focus on the mission. Tight corners and cramped spaces meant the shield would be less effective than usual. Much as he disliked firearms, he was going to need them this time around.  
  
With deft hands, Natasha slipped out two M19s and a set of knives and handed them to him. “How about a group thing?” she said, slipping out her own pistols. “Clint and I were going to do a little lonely hearts gathering and get rip-roaring drunk. I know we can’t liquor you up, but you could still have fun.”  
  
“Isn’t it a little hypocritical for a couple to throw a lonely-hearts party?”  
  
“Nonsense. We’re spreading the love.”  
  
Steve sighed and started walking through coms checks. “What’s in it for me?”  
  
“The pleasure of our company?”  
  
“I have that all the time, whether I want it or not.”  
  
“Hmm…the best hot wings in the city? They make Clint cry, so they’ll probably give you a run for your money.”  
  
“And you just stoically eat them?”  
  
“Are you kidding? I don’t touch them. I’m not crazy.” She inched closer, bumping her shoulder against his. “Come on, Steve. It’ll be fun. It doesn’t even have to be about romance. It can just be us hanging out.”  
  
He sighed and glanced sidelong at her, his lips twisted wryly. “First hint of a giant squid and I’m out of there. You and Clint can handle it on your own this time.”  
  


* * *

  
  
The day before Valentine’s Steve arrived at a bar in near Dupont Circle at eight o’clock, only to find a large and raucous group of SHIELD agents already taking up two tables in the corner. Every single agent had a massive pink and red drink adorned with one of those cute little umbrellas as well as a purple crazy straw.  
  
“Steve!” Clint waved, cheeks flushed with alcohol, and drink sloshing over his hand as he raised it. “Steve! Here! Guys, it’s Steve.”  
  
Next to him, sedate and regal in a red dress that left Steve feeling slightly uncomfortable with how much it revealed, Natasha flicked her hand. When he was within range, she said more quietly, “Glad you came.”  
  
“Almost didn’t,” he said with a shrug and more than hint of guilt in his tone, “but then Clint sent me this.” He held out his smartphone to reveal a photo of Natasha, nose and chin slathered in whipped cream, attempting to fish a cherry out of a pie tin. “You didn’t tell me you were doing fun party games.” He slid into the only open chair left, across from Clint and between Bobbi and a man he’d never met before.  
  
“Abootions?” Clint offered, leaning across the table and waving about another ridiculous drink.  
  
“I think you mean ‘ablutions’,” said the new man, speaking in a lilting Irish accent that sent Steve straight back to 1927, sitting on his mother’s knee at their crushingly small kitchen table. It didn’t help that the stranger was on the smaller side, slim, whippy, and as far as Steve could tell, short. In another life, he and Steve might have been related. “And I don’t think it means what you think it means.”  
  
“I mean what I mean,” said Clint, mug still extended to Steve. “Abyootions.”  
  
Steve took the glass with a skeptical smile, putting the straw to his lips and sipping. It tasted of strawberries and passion fruit, as well as some sort of liquor he couldn’t quite identify. It was tasty, lightly carbonated on his tongue and neither too sweet nor to sour.  
  
“’s not bad, yeah?” offered the man, extending his hand. “Darrel Finch. Pleasure to meet you.”  
  
“Steve Rogers. Likewise.” They shook and Steve took another sip, eyes flicking up to where Natasha was smiling. It wasn’t the satisfied smirk or the calculating tilt of lips he’d come to expect, though. Instead, she simply looked pleased, oddly content in the low lighting of the pub.  
  
“Now that Steve’s here,” Clint slurred, standing and raising his glass, “I purpose…pur-pose…I say we play another game. Whataya got, Nat?”  
  
“Well, I’m out of game supplies, but how does everyone feel about a round of ‘Never Have I Ever’?”  
  
“Aw, c’mon, Nat. Tha’ss like…a college game.”  
  
“But it’s a good way to get to know new people,” said one of the agents to Natasha’s left (Mike?), smirking over his drink umbrella. “And I don’t know half the table.”  
  
“Lame…” Clint grumbled, slumping in his seat and crossing his arms like a pouting child.  
  
“I’m for it,” said, Darrel, shrugging and grinning. He leaned precariously back on his chair and put his hands behind his head, grinning. “I’m an open book.”  
  
“Are we agreed?” Nat asked, gaze passing around the other agents. Steve knew most of their faces, though Darrel and the short round woman at the end of the table were entirely new. They all nodded in agreement or shrugged in indifference, and Natasha smirked at them. “Good. I’ll go first. And I think the inaugural drink calls for a round of shots. What does everyone say?”  
  
“Shots!” Clint declared, slamming a fist on the table.  
  
“Comin’ up,” the bartender called, and a few people groaned.  
  
“Thanks, Clint,” said a woman (Jenine, maybe…) from the training program. “A hangover’s just what I wanted. I have to fly to Sudan tomorrow.”  
  
“You love me,” Clint insisted, clumsily reaching across the table and patting her hand. In retaliation, she flicked her umbrella at him, smirking with satisfaction when it struck him on the cheek.  
  
“You’ll regret that even more than the shots,” Natasha said with a blithe smile, slinking in her chair. “He’ll remember. Even if he blacks out, he’ll always get even if you shoot an object at him. He takes it as a challenge”  
  
“I think I can take it,” she replied primly, sitting back as the bartender set a shot glass before her.  
  
“You can’t take nothing…anything? Nothing!” Clint said, and in spite of how very, very drunk he was already, he picked up the little umbrella and spun it across his knuckles with almost unbelievable speed.  
  
“Anyway,” Natasha said, she lifted her glass and smirked. “Never have I ever…shopped at Yankee Candle Co.”  
  
“You’re a bitch,” Clint groaned and downed his shot, slamming it back down on the table when he was done. A few of the other agents were also putting back their own drinks, grimacing at the burn.  
  
“You’re not a candle man?” Darrel asked Steve, tracing the rim of his own shot glass. He wasn’t drinking it.  
  
“Not really. I’ve got some emergency candles in my kit at home, but that’s about it, and they sure as heck don’t smell like anything.”  
  
“I’m gonna get’cha back,” Clint declared, glaring at the red-haired assassin with all the fury of a wet kitten. He raised his tropical drink and then stood shakily, his legs wobbling so badly that Steve tensed, prepared to catch him if he fell. “Never have I ever given a blow job.”  
  
“Yes, you have,” Natasha declared with a frown. “I know you have.”  
  
“Nope,” he said with a sloppy grin. “He thought that’s what it was, but it definitely wasn’t.”  
  
“Leave it to Clint to make this thing filthy as quickly as possible,” said Bobbi, rolling her eyes and downing her drink. Next to Steve, Darrel also tossed his shot back and Steve had to fight an instant sympathetic blush. Across from them Nat and Clint were still arguing about what constituted a blow job, but Nat did pause long enough to down her shot. The agent next to Clint, Steve thought their name was Jess, elbowed Clint sharply and then said, “Never have I ever been to Beijing.”  
  
Everyone save Steve had already lost their shots and were now just sipping down the strawberry drinks, but Steve twirled his glass slowly and looked up bashfully. Darrel was watching with a grin. “For Captain America, you sure haven’t been around the block as much as I thought you would be.”  
  
“I was a sick kid, and then I was in the army. Honestly, SHIELD’s given me more access to new, exciting experiences than anything else I’ve been part of up ’til now.”  
  
They went down the next six agents, and still no one gave a suggestion that made Steve have to take his shot. For all that they lived dangerous lives that probably provided a lot of fodder for the game, the super soldier noticed that everyone steered clear from experiences that might step on toes. Nobody brought up missions or work. It was mostly sex and travel, with the occasional childhood embarrassment mixed in.  
  
Then came Darrel’s turn. “I’ve gotta get Steve here,” he declared, lifting his drink thoughtfully and glancing around the table. Natasha smirked in approval and Clint leaned forward, putting his chin on his hand. “Yeah…get Steve. Steve needs getting. Steve needs sexing, too, but you c’n work yer way up to that.”  
  
In his seat, Steve felt the treacherous blush race over his cheeks as the remainder of the agents snickered at him. “Thanks, Clint,” Steve gritted, glaring at the archer. “Remind me to pay you back for that later in training.” The sniper blanched and slipped off his fist.  
  
“Aw, Steve, what about my delicate conversation…constipation…con…what about my poor nose?”  
  
Natasha slid her hand over Clint’s mouth and nodded at Darrel. “You were saying?”  
  
Darrel hummed and turned considering eyes on Steve. “Never have I ever danced the Lindy,” he said finally, apparently trying to settle for something semi-neutral, eyebrows raised hopefully.  
  
Steve smirked, and his hand remained loose on the rim of his glass. Three of the other agents were regretfully sipping, and one was tossing back half the strawberry drink, a big smile on his face.  
  
“Seriously? Mr. Brooklyn Jazz Age Steve Rogers never danced the Lindy?”  
  
“Didn’t know how to dance,” Steve said with a little shrug. “Still don’t really.”  
  
“Oh, now you’ve given me a challenge,” said Darrel, standing with a smirk. He turned off to the bar and started talking in low tones with the bartender. Across the table, Natasha looked intrigued, purple straw pinched between her lips. She hummed lightly and then said, “Go on, Steve. It’s your turn. Might as well keep going while we’re waiting.”  
  
“You sure?” Steve said, eyeing the guy who’d tossed back half his drink. He was draped over one of the female agents and she didn’t look particularly happy about the situation, though she already had a sharp elbow driving him back by the time Steve looked.  
  
“C’mon, Steve?” Clint slurred, leaning forward. “You chicken?”  
  
The super soldier smirked and looked Clint straight in the eye. “Never have I ever kissed Natasha Romanov,” he said, reaching out to absently toy with his drink umbrella. Clint grimaced and put his lips to the rim of his glass, crazy straw pressed against his cheek. He downed the whole thing in twenty seconds and then broke away from his glass with a groan, head dropping to the table. Natasha ran her fingers through his hair as though he were her faithful dog and not a particularly drunk sniper.  
  
Overhead, the speakers of the bar suddenly blared to life, the heavy bass of some clubbing song thumping through the tiny space. Darrel returned, his smile wide and his arms open. “Push back your tables, ladies and gents,” he declared. “We’re dancing.”  
  
The drunker agents cheered and the less drunk agents for the most part smiled. To his left, Bobbi looked pleased. “Didn’t peg you for the dancing type,” Steve said, leaning in closer to be heard.  
  
“Dancing’s just like fighting, Steve. If you know the motions and you’ve got a good partner, the rest just kind of works itself out.”  
  
“I’m not so sure about that,” he muttered, watching as she rose and went to Jess. They started swaying to the beat together and after a moment he had to avert his eyes. He still wasn’t entirely comfortable with what this era termed dancing, given that most of it looked like sex with clothes.  
  
To his right Jenine (her name was definitely Jenine) offered him a hand. He almost said no, almost begged off to just watch, but then a traitorous little voice spoke in the back of his mind. It sounded suspiciously like Peggy. _You shouldn’t just keep on waiting, Steve. Go out there and grab life by the horns._ With a wry twist of his lips, he took her hand and stood, pulling her to the edge of the area where people were dancing.  
  
“I might step on your feet,” he warned, studying her up and down and wondering how best to go about this. She gave him a warm smile and took his hand steering it around her waist before taking up the other in her own grip. Even through his sweater, her palm was warm on his shoulder.  
  
“Pretty sure you don’t step on anyone’s feet anymore, Cap.”  
  
“You’d be surprised,” he said, letting her take up the rhythm. He could feel that she was leading, but he also couldn’t bring himself to care, because it was better following her than making a fool of himself.  
  
“I bet they deserved it,” she murmured, smiling at him, looking up through thick black lashes.  
  
They danced the song to their own beat, ignoring the demanding pound of the bass, but when it finished and faded to a different song, she spun him smartly into the short round woman he’d never met before. “Sandy,” she said, never cracking a smile. She looked him up and down and then held out her hand imperiously. “Boogey or get the hell off the dance floor, Rogers.” That made him grin and he found himself matching her quick feet, watching as she tapped out something that looked like a cross between a jig and a foxtrot.  
  
People brought drinks onto the floor as they kept it up, and even though he wasn’t, couldn’t be, intoxicated, something about the atmosphere seeped into his pores, making his body loose and easy. Natasha floated behind Sandy, almost ethereally graceful, Clint behind her, less grace and more power and precision mixed with the bonelessness of his booze.  
  
Steve took a deep breath, looked back down at Sandy and danced.  
  
Somewhere along the way, he lost himself in it, and part of him thought maybe now he understood why Bucky had dragged him to the dance halls week after week, in spite of Steve’s two left feet. There was something about the ease of it, the freedom in it, that made him forget, even for a little while. His partners changed with each song and he barely noticed, shifting to accommodate their style, following their lead  
  
At some point, one group split off to play a round of darts, and the distant, tactical part of Steve’s mind took notice, but most of his attention was focused on Jess in front of him. They moved easily to the strange sliding techno beat, hands fluttering like butterflies. He couldn’t make himself be as delicate, so he tried to work counterpoint, shifting to the underlying vocal track.  
  
“Didn’t think you’d like dancing, Rogers,” Jess said, drawing closer. “You’re always so stiff at the office.”  
  
“I’m stiff because people are gossiping about me,” he returned, bowing his head to get closer. “I don’t really know how to respond to it.”  
  
“Don’t worry. Another alien attack will come along and they’ll forget all about Natasha’s quest to find you love,” they said, fluttering closer and then farther away again, undulating to the high techno staccato.  
  
“Seems unlikely,” Steve grimaced, moving to twirl them.  
  
“You could always just tell everyone you’d found someone. Make it stop.”  
  
“Lie?”  
  
“Little white lie never hurt anyone,” Jess said with a shrug, spinning easily on the axis of Steve’s hand. “Or you could just ask them to stop talking about it. Believe it or not, Cap, we respect you.”  
  
As the song wound down, Darrel approached, grin wide and eyes sparkling. “How are the patented SHIELD dancing lessons coming?”  
  
“Well, I haven’t broken anyone’s foot yet, if that’s what you’re asking.”  
  
“Care to take me for a spin?”  
  
Overhead another club number came on, bass throbbing like a heartbeat. Steve offered his hand and Darrel stepped in, spinning so that his back was to Steve’s chest. “This alright?” he asked as he started to sway. “Too weird for you?”  
  
Flushing at the proximity, Steve made a strangled noise in his throat. Without a word, Darrel spun back around and hooked a hand on Steve’s waist. “Right then. We’ll work up to that.”  
  
“We will?”  
  
“If I’m terribly lucky,” Darrel said, and his grin grew a little toothier. He stepped in a few inches closer, not quite touching, but also far too close to be simply platonic. Steve could feel his cheeks flaming, and he swallowed hard, trying to clear away the ball of nerves suddenly working its way up his throat. His limbs grew suddenly uncoordinated, and he didn’t have the slightest clue where to put his hands or if he should even put them anywhere at all. None of his other dance partners had been quite this forward.  
  
Darrel inched closer still and hooked a hand in the lapel of Steve’s jacket, pulling the super soldier closer. It was only in this moment, remembering a feisty blonde in an underground bunker, that Steve realized what exactly Darrel was aiming for.  
  
He opened his mouth, to protest, to say something, to do something, when from the darts corner there came a cry followed by Clint loudly screaming “SHIT!”  
  
Steve jerked up and away, easily breaking free of Darrel’s grip as he turned, still flushed as a steamed lobster. Clint lay on the floor, one hand pressed to his buttock as the other pounded the hardwood. He let out a steady stream of swearwords, turning the air around him in a no-fly zone for the rest of the bar patrons. The music abruptly stopped as the bartender looked on, equal parts worried and irritated.  
  
“What happened?” Steve asked, muscling through the ring of agents. Someone already had a phone out calling emergency services and Sandy was leaning down, inspecting the point where blood was seeping into Clint’s jeans. Natasha lorded over it all, looking unimpressed but also just a touch murderous.  
  
“Our favorite idiot decided he should challenge the rest of these so-called agents to drunken HORSE darts. Or something like that. Increasingly ridiculous shots with unlikely objects. Clint’s last shot was with a pen knife while blindfolded, so of course Charlie here--”  
  
“I’m so sorry, Clint,” whimpered the agent on Natasha’s left.  
  
“--couldn’t let that stand unchallenged. And look what happened.”  
  
“Does this really need an ambulance, guys? I mean, I’ve gotten worse at work and they’ve sent me home with a butterfly bandage. I don’t think we need emergency services.” Clint said, his tongue now articulate with adrenaline and pain.  
  
“Oh, we need emergency services,” Natasha said, raising a sharp eyebrow. “I’m going to take pictures. Of everything.”  
  
“Naaaaat,” Clint whined, grimacing as Sandy continued to prod his wound. Steve could already hear a siren in the distance. In the heart of DC, things tended to move quickly. No knowing if it was a downed foreign dignitary or not, and better safe than sorry.  
  
Paramedics were there in under a minute, and Steve spent that time apologizing profusely to the miffed bartender and promising that the next time SHIELD agents came knocking, they’d be in a smaller, slightly more controlled group. The rest of the group dispersed when they loaded Clint into the ambulance, but he and Natasha stuck with the archer, squeezing into the back alongside EMTs who were clearly trying their best not to burst out laughing.  
  
“Not the most embarrassing injury we’ve seen with a celebrity,” one of them confessed, hand covering his smirk.  
  
“Yeah,” added the other, grinning up at Steve. “There was that senator, who shall remain nameless—“  
  
“But whose name rhymes with ‘burn’.”  
  
“—shut up, Jamile. But anyway…let’s say he got his pork barrel spending stuck in an unfortunately small barrel.”  
  
Natasha, who was happily snapping pictures of Clint’s bared buttock injury, snorted and smirked. “Tony’ll love that,” she whispered to Steve, and then returned to smearing what little dignity Clint had left.  
  
At the hospital, they checked to make sure the muscle and nerves would heal, and then they stitched Clint up and loaded Natasha and Steve with drugs for him. The archer was still too drunk, and the doctors, leery of giving him anything which might make him nauseous, said he’d just have to wait until morning.  
  
At nearly 2AM, the three of them finally managed to climb into a taxi and Steve gave the driver his address. “You two are staying the night,” he informed Natasha, watching as the lights of central DC whisked past. “It’s just easier at this point.”  
  
“Not arguing,” Natasha said with a yawn, leaning into Steve’s shoulder. She closed her eyes for a moment, fingers stroking through Clint’s hair, and then opened them again. “Did you have fun?”  
  
“I…” Steve paused and looked out the window again, lips pursed in thought. “I think so,” he said finally, tilting his head to look back at her.  
  
“Any sparks of love?” she asked with a smirk, raising one of her perfectly-winged eyebrows.  
  
“Honestly? Nah. Not a one.”  
  
Natasha gave him a thoughtful look at then leaned back, settling Clint more firmly in her lap and turning him so his injured side wasn’t taking his weight. He was practically unconscious at this point. “Ok. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but I have to ask. In your lifetime, how many people have you actually been attracted to? How many have you looked at and thought ‘That person. I want to be with them.’ And I mean intimately, Rogers.”  
  
Grimacing, Steve looked out the window again, running his fingers nervously over the outseam of his jeans. “I don’t know,” he murmured, glancing at her before looking away again. “Two maybe. Three?”  
  
Natasha looked down at Clint and then back up again, her eyes still distant, mind whirring behind them. She hummed gently, but other than that, made no comment. A moment later, the cab pulled up to Steve’s apartment and they clambered out, Clint propped between them. Steve ended up carrying the archer up the stairs because it was just easier than trying to maneuver his flopping feet.  
  
He set the two of them up in his guest bedroom, giving them a few of his T-shirts and running shorts because it was better than nothing. As he was leaving them to sleep, he paused in the doorway.  
  
“Nat?”  
  
She looked at him, red hair swinging around her face and exhaustion visible around her eyes.  
  
“I know there weren’t any sparks or anything, but…I really did have a good time. Really.”  
  
She looked at him for a moment, that same thoughtful gaze she’d worn in the car earlier, and then smiled softly, a rare and true thing on her face. “I’m glad, Steve.”  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me at [tumblr](http://arukou-arukou.tumblr.com/) for more fannish squealing and writing snippets.


	6. Operation Kept Boy

“I don’t know, Tony. I’m just not sure I’d feel comfortable doing…that.”  
  
“Oh, come on, Cap. Literally everyone else has already said yes. Sam said yes and he’s not even an official Avenger. You can’t leave us hanging. You’re the leader.”  
  
“Bruce is doing it?”  
  
“Uh…”  
  
“Bruce is doing it,” Bruce said, coming up behind Tony, bearing a tray of warm dinner rolls in one hand. “But only because Pepper asked nicely.”  
  
“I can get Pepper to ask nicely. She’ll ask real nicely.”  
  
“She will?” said Pepper dryly, looking up over her tablet, eyes severe and irritated. “Define ‘nicely’, Tony.”  
  
“Please, Cap. It’s for a good cause. It’ll just be five hours of your life. That’s it. I’ll send a bodyguard to make sure you don’t get molested. Dinner. Walk in the park. Maybe an art gallery. You like art, right? Art’ll be nice. It’ll be…you know. Pleasant.”  
  
“Pleasant,” Steve parroted, pulling up his chair and settling at Tony’s side. He sighed and started serving himself a salad as the rest of the Avengers came to the table. “I have to think about it a little more,” he said finally, reaching for the salad dressing. “It’s…it’s not a thing I would ever…Just let me think on it, ok, Tony? I’m still…you know I’m still busy trying to…” He paused and inhaled, the air sharp in his throat. Across the table, Sam glanced up, expression knowing and worried.  
  
Tony frowned, lips pulling to the side and eyes narrowing, but finally he reached out a snagged a dinner roll, ripping it open and setting it on his plate. “I know,” he said, suddenly and uncharacteristically soft. “But you’ve been at it for three months and you deserve a break.”  
  
Steve stared down at the table, the line of muscle leading from his neck to his shoulders standing hard and stressed under the dining room lights. “I’ll think on it,” he said again, not meeting anyone’s eyes.  
  
“Alright, Cap. I can give you to the end of the week, but we really need to make the announcement soon.”  
  
Later that night, Natasha came to his suite, a pan of brownies in hand. Steve opened the door for her and raised an eyebrow. “You come bearing bribery. What’s the occasion?”  
  
“Do the auction, and I guarantee that the winner will not be a creep,” she said without preamble, shoving the pan into his chest. He put his hands up instinctually, feeling the warmth still seeping from the metal. The scent of fresh chocolate and sugar hit him like a punch from a Chitauri ground trooper.  
  
“How’s that?” he said, leaning in the doorjamb and purposefully keeping her from sliding in.  
  
“I’ve found someone. I think you’ll like her. She’s…Well, she’s loaded and she loves giving to charities and I mentioned the whole Men of Avengers auction and she jumped on that like a bee on honey. She already promised me she’d bid for you until she won.”  
  
Steve sighed and looked down at the pan, wondering if it would be rude to just dig a bit of brownie out with his fingers. “I don’t know, Nat. You haven’t tried to set me up since the whole SHIELD debacle, and we still haven’t found Bucky and…you know my head’s just not in it right now.”  
  
“Steve,” she said, and something in her tone was sharp and raw. It made him look up with concern. “This is not about finding you a date. I think…well, we’ll talk about what I think on that front later. This is about you and your mental health. Believe it or not, I think of you as a friend, and I hate watching you tear yourself apart like this. You can’t be just the job, just the next mission. It’s going to ruin you. Especially you. Believe me, I know.”  
  
Uncomfortable, Steve glanced back into his apartment at the web of maps and photos and intelligence he’d tacked to one wall, trying to visualize and make sense of the ghosts and snippets of information he’d found concerning Bucky’s whereabouts. “I don’t know if I know how to be anything else anymore,” he said finally, eyes still lingering on the map of Mexico, tacks running a line south from Monterrey to Mexico City.  
  
Natasha touched his shoulder then, her fingers light and insubstantial. “Try,” she said, her voice like iron. “For me.”  
  
He glanced back at her, taking in the hard line of her mouth and the diamond in her eyes. “Ok,” he said finally. “Ok. I’ll text Tony and tell him yes.”  
  
“Thank you,” she said before abruptly leaning up and kissing his cheek. “For trying.”  
  
Steve offered her a half smile and glanced down at the brownies again. “Well,” he said, tone self-deprecating, “you did pay for my services, after all.”  
  
“Shove off, Rogers,” she said affectionately, and then turned back to the elevator, disappearing into the night.  
  


* * *

  
  
The day of the auction dawned bright and uncomfortably warm, even for late July. Steve woke early, took his run, and spent the remainder of the morning staring at his web and the new intelligence from JARVIS and trying not to think about the coming evening. He was still trying not to think about it, even as he showered and changed into his tux, taking the elevator down to wait for the others.  
  
Everyone was ready to go by 1:30 (a half an hour later than planned, but when it came to anything but saving the world the Avengers seemed to be incapable of being on time), and they piled into a limousine. Steve instantly felt overdressed, seeing that Tony, Clint, and Sam were all in more casual suits, Thor was dressed in traditional Asgardian fair, and Bruce had elected to stick with jeans and a button-up. Sam whistled through his teeth, giving Steve a once over. “You sure do clean up nice,” he said, grinning softly.  
  
“I didn’t know we were going to be so…casual,” Steve said, self-conscious and blushing. “Tony said people were going to be giving upwards of tens of thousands of dollars. I didn’t…I didn’t think anything less than a tux would be appropriate.”  
  
“Relax, Steve,” said Tony, reaching over and patting his shoulder. “The bidders will eat it up. You look great.”  
  
“Easy for you to say,” Steve groused, settling further into his seat. “Pepper’s bidding on you, right?”  
  
“Uh, no?” Tony said, grinning and raising an eyebrow. “That would ruin the fun. Besides, she thinks this whole thing is undignified.”  
  
“It is undignified,” Clint said, leaning back and stretching out his legs. “But it’s my favorite kind of indignity.”  
  
Steve harrumphed and fidgeted, resisting the urge to play with his bowtie. He wasn’t quite sure why they were bothering with a limo, since Christie’s Auction House (Tony had though the venue would be _funny_ , the jerk) was barely six blocks away, but he supposed he’d be grateful when it was hauling them through the press throng.  
  
Just as the limo was pulling up, Tony leaned over again and in a low voice said, “You sure you’re ok, Cap? I know I needled the crap out of you about this, but if you need to duck out…”  
  
“No,” he said hurriedly. “We’re already here and they’re expecting me to show up. It’s fine. I’ll be fine.”  
  
Tony gave him a disbelieving look, but after a moment nodded and patted Steve’s shoulder one last time. “Alright. But Nat told me her plan and I know the woman she’s talking about. If you need to duck out of the evening, she’ll totally understand.”  
  
Steve gulped, unsure how to feel about his teammates scheming on his love life behind his back, but he nodded and squared his shoulders, waiting for the door to open. A solid wall of flashbulbs hit him the moment he stepped out, and he reached for that thing he’d had on the USO tours, the one that had let him smile and simper at politicians and babies alike. He knew the smile dressing his face was fake, but the press probably didn’t know that.  
  
Somehow, with gentle nudges from Tony and Sam, he managed to stumble his way down the red carpet with only one awful interview in between. (“You’re infamously single, Captain. What do you look for in a woman?”) And then he was through the doors and on to the catering service. Waiters floated among a glittering crowd of rich donors, like crows amongst flocks of tropical birds, bearing plates of hors d’oeuvres and glasses of champagne. As the male Avengers filed in the crowd broke into applause, and Steve suddenly felt like a slab of beef being eyed by a starving mob. He could feel hungry, appraising gazes on him from every angle and it was…deeply uncomfortable.  
  
Behind him, Thor pushed gently forward. “At ease, Steven,” he rumbled in the Captain’s ear. “All will be well. Have faith in Natalia.”  
  
He gulped and kept walking, trying to look neither left nor right as they paraded through. At the podium set up for the event, they arrayed themselves for the viewing pleasure of the crowd. The lights were bright in Steve’s eyes and he felt oddly nauseous, a rolling in his stomach that he hadn’t felt since before the serum.  
  
“Ladies and Gentleman,” Tony cried, pulling up a mic and spreading his arms. “Welcome to the Men of Avengers Charity Auction, sponsored by the Maria Stark Foundation.” The crowd gave a round of polite applause as Tony soaked in the attention, and Steve felt glad that he was not the one speaking. “As you know, all of your donations have gone to the Battle of New York Relief and Reconstruction Fund, and donations raised on the auction block will be put toward the Public Rescuers Disability Aid Fund. The true heroes of the Battle of New York were not the Avengers, but the city’s emergency responders, and I’d like to offer up my thanks for all you’ve given to this city. Hopefully we can give a little bit back to you as well.”  
  
The crowd offered up another cheer as Tony gestured to several uniformed police officers and firefighters in the back, and even Steve managed to crack a little smile at that. All he had to do was remind himself that this was for a good cause, and a little of his unease lifted.  
  
“We, the Men of Avengers, plus Honorary Avenger Sam Wilson, will be commingling with you for the next half hour or so and then we’ll make our way into the auction house where our esteemed colleague, Natasha Romanov, will have the great pleasure of auctioning us off to a few lucky people. Thanks again for coming, folks, and hope you enjoy the rest of the event.”  
  
They stepped down on from the dais as a string quartet took their place, and Natasha cornered Steve almost immediately, a petite brunette in tow. “Steve, this is the woman I told you about.”  
  
The smaller woman stepped up, her grin huge, her upturned eyes dancing. “Janet Van Dyne, a pleasure to meet you,” she said, hand extended to him. Steve took in her angular, hair cut, the streak of red slashing through one side, and her architectural black and gold cocktail dress and immediately thought _artist_.  
  
“Steve Rogers,” he replied, taking her hand and feeling almost surprised at how very firm her grip was. But then, if she was friends with Natasha, he shouldn’t really be surprised at her strength at all. “The pleasure’s all mine.”  
  
“So Natasha tells me you’ve got a particularly lovely date planned out,” she said, winking at him as she took up his arm.  
  
“Uh…honestly, I’m not really sure. Tony took care of all the arrangements. I’m just supposed to go where he points and show yo…show my date the best time I can.” Steve squirmed a little, and spotted a waiter bearing a tray of champagne. “Would you care for something to drink?”  
  
“That would be lovely, Steve.” Janet followed him easily through the crowd, even though his stride ate nearly twice the distance of hers, and she was moving in heels to boot. “I was under the impression there would be a visit to an art gallery on the docket.”  
  
“Tony mentioned something about that, yeah. Do you like art?”  
  
“Love it. I’m a fashion designer by trade, and a lot of my inspiration comes from visits to galleries. How about you? The art world doesn’t seem like something Captain America would particularly be interested in.”  
  
“Actually, before Pearl Harbor, I was an art student. I…I wanted to draw. Paint, too, but I never really had the money for that.”  
  
Something lit in Janet’s eyes like fire, and a glow settled around her. “Tell me about your inspirations. Who did you admire? What specifically were you hoping to produce? What subject matter interested you?”  
  
Three glasses of champagne later, he and Jan (“My friends call me Jan.”) had already managed to cover surrealism and its influence on Steve’s political cartoons, and Jan had just started speaking about the influence of sixties minimalism on her work. Over their conversation, a bell sounded, and Natasha’s voice came through a loud speaker. “Ladies and gentlemen, the bidding will begin in five minutes. If you’d please be so kind as to make your way to the auction house.”  
  
A man bearing a Stark Securities personnel badge materialized in front of Steve and said, “Captain Rogers, if you’ll please come this way.”  
  
“Well, Steve,” said Jan, squeezing his arm gently, “I’m looking forward to continuing our conversation soon.” She winked at him again, her smile genuine and wide, and then released him to the security guard.  
  
The man in black lead Steve around back to the “wares” display and left him standing between Thor and Sam.  
  
“You looked like you were having a pretty good time,” Sam said, smiling, his tone genuine.  
  
“I…I guess I was,” Steve replied, surprised to find he meant it. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d managed to have a conversation with a non-combatant that wasn’t completely awkward or impersonal.  
  
“Is she Natasha’s plant?”  
  
“Yeah. Her name’s Jan. She’s…she’s pretty swell.”  
  
“‘Pretty swell’, Steve?” Tony said, appearing through the door. “I thought we’d trained you better in modern slang.”  
  
“You know what I mean.”  
  
“Yeah. Jan’s amazing. We grew up in the same circles, and she never…well, let’s say she was never awed by family legacy. She gave all those blue bloods a piece of her mind more often than not. Fucking firecracker.”  
  
“That’s not a very nice thing to say about a lady.”  
  
“I mean it in the most complimentary sense. Jan’s always been her own woman, and I like that about her.”  
  
On stage, Natasha made the fist announcement, bringing out Sam, and the Avengers’ men hushed as he made his way on stage. Steve listened half-heartedly as Natasha began the bidding process at “ten.” It took him a moment to realize that she didn’t mean “ten dollars” but rather “ten thousand.”  
  
“Tony…” he began, heart thudding up his throat.  
  
“Cap, people want to help. If that involves throwing heinously large wads of cash at charity, I’m not complaining. Especially not when even my wealth couldn’t possibly cover the repairs.” Tony placed a gentle hand on Steve’s shoulder, squeezed, and then dropped it. The super soldier blew out a breath, tried to swallow down his nerves and tuned back in just as Sam was auctioned off to a woman. He heard a smattering of light applause and was almost glad he hadn’t caught the final price. He watched as a stately blonde approached the dais to claim Sam, and Natasha kept her a moment to have her announce her name and a little about herself. Her name was Karla Sofen, and she was apparently a psychiatrist with her own private practice. Steve felt a wave of relief at that; at least Sam would have something to talk about with her.  
  
Clint was up next, and he strutted on stage and immediately started flexing, flashing a huge grin at the audience. Watching the archer’s antics made another notch in Steve’s shoulders drop free, and he looked on while Clint hammed it up for his audience. Natasha’s smile was fond as she opened the bidding.  
  
Steve found if he focused on Clint instead of Natasha’s voice, it was almost fun to watch the auction. Their resident sniper’s reactions as the bids rose higher and higher were nearly priceless, his face warping into odder and odder shapes, his hands flying in disbelief or outrage.  
  
Natasha brought down the gavel on a number Steve desperately tried to erase from his mind, but his brain gave a little pause as a man approached the dais and announced his name for the crowd. “Paul Ebersol?” he asked, turning back to Tony. “Men are bidding, too?”  
  
The inventor raised an eyebrow and his face cracked. “Oh shit, I didn’t even think to mention. Is that gonna be a problem, Cap? I know it wasn’t the done thing in your time admittedly, but…”  
  
“No, that’s not…” Steve caught himself and held up his hands. “It’s not that at all. I was just…caught off guard, is all.”  
  
“You sure, Cap? You’re still welcome to back out.”  
  
“I don’t have a problem with homosexuality, Tony,” Steve said, resisting the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Hell, I almost kissed a man at the SHIELD Christmas party.”  
  
Tony’s eyebrows shot up, and a smirk spread across his face. “I need that story later,” he murmured as Bruce brushed past him to take the stage. The scientist’s face was already a wash of crimson, and Steve had a very brief moment of panic that the Hulk might just make a unwelcome, though not entirely unexpected, appearance.  
  
“Don’t worry,” assured Tony, eyes on Bruce. “He’s high as a kite.”  
  
“He’s high?” Steve squeaked, looking back out to the stage and trying to catch a glimpse of Bruce’s eyes.  
  
“Best weed money can buy,” Tony assured as Natasha started up the bidding, her tone and words a little gentler now that it was Bruce under the spotlight. The scientist ended up being auctioned off to an aeronautical engineer named Abner Jenkins, and Thor quickly followed, going to an executive producer for WWE named Melissa Gold.  
  
“Relax, Cap. It’ll be a walk in the park. Literally,” Tony reassured, as he stepped up to the stage, grinning and waving peace signs. This time, Steve couldn’t quite block the numbers out, and he felt a knot lodge in his throat when the bidding on Tony closed at $476,000. The winner stepped up, a dark-haired woman in a slinky white dress, and Tony grinned at her, but Steve felt a stir in his gut, some wriggling instinct of worry. That was Tony’s press smile, the one he used when a reporter hit him with a question he wasn’t expecting. The woman breathed her name (Sybil Dvorak) like a lover whispering in someone’s ear, and half the room melted, but Tony remained stiff, his grin fixed. She was apparently a big-shot actor overseas, but was now trying to break into Hollywood. With a solicitous arm, she led Tony away, leaning into him more than really necessary.  
  
Something’s wrong, Steve’s instincts told him, but then Natasha was calling his name.  
  
“And now, ladies and gentlemen, our prize specimen for the evening, Captain America himself. The lucky winner of this bid will be accompanying Captain Steve Rogers to an art gallery for a private viewing, and then they’ll head to Jean Georges for a full course meal from the chef himself. They’ll round out the evening high above New York’s skyline, dancing at the exclusive ball in Stark Tower, hosted for our winners.”  
  
Natasha winked at him, a smile tilting her lips, and then turned back to the audience. “As you all know, Captain Rogers is a nonagenarian, so we expect you to return him in good condition and well before his bedtime.” A ripple of chuckles worked through the audience, and Steve shot Natasha a look, which was promptly magnified on the overhead screen. He glanced out and smiled sheepishly at the audience, waving and willing it to be over. “Given the historical nature of our resident antique,” ( _I will get her for this_ , he vowed to himself), “I think it’s fair to start the bidding at $100,000. Do I have 100,000?”  
  
Steve tried to tune the numbers out, to just watch the paddles flashing up in the bright lighting of the auction house, and his eyes fell on Clint, who now sat stiffly, his shoulders in a tight line and his mouth pinched. That niggling sense of wrong twisted in Steve’s gut again. Why wasn’t the archer smiling?  
  
As though aware he had Steve’s attention, Clint casually raised a hand to his shoulder as though to brush some lint away. At the same time, he coughed, fist flying up over his other arm, thumb extended to his chin. Steve knew instantly that this was sign language, and he’d been trying to learn in his spare time, but this was a word that wasn’t in his vocabulary.  
  
He redirected his attention to Natasha, wondering if she’d seen, but her eyes were flying between the bidders. “435. I’ve got 435. 440. 445. 445 from the lovely lady in the…450.” There were really only two people bidding at this point. Jan was sitting in the third row, her face screwed up in concentration, paddle flying into the air again and again. Further back on the opposite side of the room, a blonde man with a pug nose was just as stubbornly raising his paddle, eyes burning holes in the back of Jan’s head.  
  
As Steve watched, an older woman in the back also raised her paddle, her steel hair flashing under the harsh lighting. Jan volleyed back and then the blonde man waved his number again, irritation sketched in the lines of his shoulders.  
  
Letting his eyes wander again, Steve found Bruce, and his breath caught for a moment. The scientist’s eyes were closed, his jaw slack, and Tony had said he was high, but still. Bruce, of all people, was not one to fall asleep in public. _Shoulda brought the shield, Rogers_ , he told himself, looking for Tony and his slinky date. The inventor was all the way at the very back, and his mouth was set just like Clint’s, an identical line of stubbornness and fury.  Sam was three seats over from him, eyes glittering coldly. He caught Steve’s eye and shook his head. Thor seemed to be the only Avenger still in a jovial mood, his arm slung around Melissa Gold’s shoulder. The woman seemed less than thrilled about this, but she smiled gamely when Thor caught her eye.  
  
“Enough!” shouted someone, and the blonde, pug-nosed man rose from his seat. “One million!”  
  
At the podium, Natasha stilled, her eyes sharp and assessing. Steve instinctively looked to Jan, but the young woman was frowning, and her paddle stayed in her lap. She saw him looking and shrugged her shoulders, expression turning apologetic. Sorry, she mouthed. Steve nodded once in understanding and shifted his attention back to the blonde man.  
  
Natasha was looking uneasy at the podium, and Steve could see her eyes darting around assessing. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Clint make the same gesture, his cough reverberating through the oddly silent room.  
  
Smoothly, Natasha leaned into the mic and said, “Going once. Going twice. Really folks? No million one? Sold to the very eager gentleman. If you’d please step up to claim your date, sir.”  
  
The blonde man shuffled into the aisle and started working his way to the front; he was broad in the shoulders, short and heavily-built. His burgundy jacket glimmered faintly in the light, simultaneously expensive and ostentatious looking.  
  
“A pleasure, Captain,” he said as he stepped up the dais, and Steve felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. He knew a German accent when he heard it, and with Hydra still on his mind, he couldn’t help but feel wary.  
  
“Tell the audience a little about yourself,” said Natasha, her smile solicitous, but Steve knew that face. He’d seen it on ops dozens, maybe hundreds of times. She was laying her web.  
  
The man slid his arm into Steve’s and tugged the super soldier forward, his grin wide and just the wrong side of oozing, and Steve felt something sharp and metal press against his ribcage just below his armpit and angled toward his heart. _So that’s how it is_ , he thought. He didn’t dare look down, but he knew it could be anything from a knife to a gun to a tazer, though how they’d slipped those past security, he couldn’t be sure.  
  
“Hello, Americans,” he said, lingering on the word like he’d just uttered something particularly salacious. “My name is Baron Helmut Zemo, and I would like to express my pleasure in seeing all the Avengers gathered here under one roof for such a…worthy cause.”  
  
Whatever was digging into Steve’s ribs pressed even more closely and Steve felt the fabric of his jacket give way to a sharp blade. He swallowed as Thor shuddered suddenly, something glinting in Melissa Gold’s hand. His eyes went wide and then soft, eyelids fluttering down. Drugged.  
  
“I am so looking forward to my date with Captain Steve Rogers, truly a symbol of freedom for this country.”  
  
Steve ground his teeth, hating the way Zemo’s words twisted and slithered through his ears. The German stepped away, pressing his weapon against Steve with express purpose, and Natasha took the podium again. “Not a word, Widow,” the Baron murmured to her as he headed back down the stairs, towing his prize.  
  
“That’s all for the auction folks,” Natasha said, her smile wide and charitable, unflinching. “We the Avengers would like to thank you all for your generous donations. There are anonymous collections boxes located in the lobby if you’d like to further our cause. Congratulations again to the lucky winners, and I hope you all have a lovely evening.”  
  
Steve twisted to try and watch her go, but the Baron tugged him, and cold metal touched his skin, his tux shirt and undershirt giving way to the sharp pressure. “Now, now, Captain. Wouldn’t want to make a scene with all these civilians present, would you? You never know who might get hurt.”  
  
Security was waiting at the back, quickly escorting the Avengers and their dates out a side exit. The winning bidders had chosen their scenario well; from here, each team member would take a separate limo. They weren’t on radio, and they had no way of contacting each other. While security was waiting at each date location, the limos themselves only contained a driver. The unenhanced humans in particular were sitting ducks, and with Thor’s head lolling in front of him, Steve suspected one of their heaviest hitters also wouldn’t be much use.  
  
Just as they exited into the alley, though, a shot rang out, and a hole appeared in Zemo’s forehead, neat and round and red. The man jerked and then fell, blade dropping from Steve’s side. Before the other cohorts could react, Steve was already in motion, his arm wrapping around Tony’s date and yanking her back, his other arm reaching to incapacitate her weapon. One sharp movement slammed her head against the limo door, and she dropped to the cement, unconscious. Tony jerked away and bowled into Clint’s date, hitting hard and low and dancing away before any weapon could be brought to bear on him. Clint shook loose and the tides turned very quickly, especially when another shot rang out, dropping Sam’s escort.  
  
Unlike the Baron, though, this woman rose up, the bullet falling from her forehead as though it had been nothing more than paper. “Well, guess the gig is up,” she murmured, her smile turning fierce and deadly. “But that’s alright. I was looking for a reason to play.”  
  
She blinked, and her clothes shimmered, transforming into some sort of costumed armor. Beside her Thor’s date, opened her mouth and screamed, the sound cutting through Steve like scissors through wet paper. He dropped to his knees, and Tony dropped beside him, but from the corner of his eye he could see Clint reach up and flick his hearing aid. The archer was still moving, aiming at Bruce’s captor, but the mystery shooter beat him to it, another gunshot ringing out.  
  
Next to them, Tony’s date was wriggling back up, her hands twisting through the air, but a quick, violent cuff from the inventor sent her tumbling again, her dress tripping her up. She shot them a look of pure venom, and Steve lurched to follow her, but the pressure on his ear drums was getting worse and worse, all-consuming in its demand for attention.  
  
Shaking his head, he glanced across the feet between him and Bruce to see if they’d be getting a green visitor any time soon. The scientist was blinking, and Steve could see his fists clenching and unclenching, but either the Hulk didn’t yet feel threatened enough to show himself, the weed Bruce’d smoked before hand was inhibiting his reactions, or he’d been drugged with something else when Steve wasn’t looking. After a wavering moment, he clapped hands to his ears and dropped, turning sluggishly to aid Thor where he slumped against the wall. Security ringed them, but the men were all writhing on the ground as the scream went on and on.  
  
Steve felt a trickle of blood run down his jaw as one ear drum imploded, and the shimmering woman rose into the air, light glowing around her in a decidedly dangerous manner. Clint considered her for a moment and then turned on the screaming woman, aiming a punch low and hard. She doubled over and the sound abruptly cut off.  
  
“I believe, my dears,” said the flying woman, “that we’d best make a break for it.” She shot a blast of light at Clint, blowing a hole in the concrete where he’d just been standing. Debris sprayed everywhere and another gunshot rang out, but she was abruptly in front of her compatriots, wrapping her arms around both of them. Together they rose into the air, moving as fast as Tony in the armor, disappearing between one blink and the next.  
  
Around them, the security guards stirred, most of them bleeding at the ears, and Steve caught Bruce’s gaze. “You holding it together?” he asked, and while he felt his voice in his throat, he couldn’t really hear it. The scientist nodded and held up one hand, fingers lax as if to say, _No anger here_. Beside him, Thor remained insensate, listing to one side, blonde hair shifting where his breath blew across it.  
  
Beside Steve, Tony was muttering, still on his hands and knees and head drooping between his shoulders. Clint was watching them all, face caught between anger and amusement. He signed something at Steve and it took a moment to process. _Having fun?_  
  
“Fuck you, Clint,” Steve returned, not bothering to use his hands to convey the sentiment. Slowly he rose, shoulders stiff where they’d clenched against the cutting sound. It hadn’t even really been a fight, but he felt battered all the same. He got his hands on Tony’s shoulders and hauled the inventor up, turning to survey the damage. The other three bidders slumped around them, dead as doornails, a matching set of bullet holes dotting their foreheads.  
  
In the exit, Natasha appeared, her cocktail dress slit to the top of her thigh and knives in each hand. She said something, but Steve couldn’t read her lips, and after a moment, he shrugged helplessly and tapped at his bloody ears. Sighing, the spy slipped her weapons back into her thigh holsters and sashayed over, shaking her head at him. She took up his hand and pressed it to her throat before saying, “I just can’t take you boys anywhere.”  
  
She looked down at the bodies and all the security guards, still working their way to their feet. “Let’s get you all inside and contact the authorities. I think we’re going to need some background checks.”  
  
Tony said something, and Natasha laughed, as short sharp bark of humor.  
  
“What’d he say?” Steve asked, watching as Clint helped Bruce haul Thor up.  
  
“He said, ‘I hope their checks clear.’”  
  


* * *

  
  
By evening, Steve’s hearing had more or less returned, his ear drums knitting themselves back together. He was slumped on the sofa in sweats and a T-shirt when Natasha flopped on top of him, a bowl of popcorn in one hand. He blew out a tiny woof of air, but otherwise let her drape herself how she would. She set her bowl on his chest and started eating.  
  
“Are the checks gonna clear?” he asked, snatching a handful for himself.  
  
“Seems unlikely. We’ve managed to trace Zemo at least, and he was definitely a Hydra lackey. It looks like he struck out on his own after Insight and gathered the others to him. We’re still working on what all their histories were.”  
  
“Well, tell Jan I’m sorry she didn’t get her date.”  
  
“Are you kidding? She said she had a blast. Although she is hoping you’ll go to a gallery or a museum with her sometime, even without the charity donation.”  
  
“As a friend?” Steve hazarded, tilting so he could see Natasha’s face.  
  
“As a friend.” Natasha paused and considered him, her lips pursing. “You…”  
  
The silence stretched longer and longer and Steve smirked. “At a loss for words? No teasing remarks? Nothing about spinsterhood?”  
  
“No,” she said, suddenly serious. She leaned into him, her elbow digging into his solar plexus. “Listen, you don’t want to date. You’re not attracted to people. And I just wanted to say that there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. You should be able to live how you want to live. And I wanted…want you to know that. I’m not going to set you up on dates anymore.”  
  
Steve considered her, watched the way she was trying to keep her face painfully blank, and caught all the miniscule tells where she was failing. After a moment, he reached out and set a palm on her bicep, squeezing gently and smiling. “You can keep doing it if you want. I had a lot of fun. What with the giant squids and robots and new super villains.”  
  
Natasha was apparently unwilling to take up his levity. She shook her head sharply and leaned in. “No one ever said it to me,” she told him, shifting to clasp his hand. “Nobody ever said…” The words seemed to catch in her throat and she leaned back again, withdrawing. Steve quickly sat up and set the popcorn aside so he could catch her before she ran, pulling her into his chest and hugging her for all he was worth.  
  
“Hey,” he said, tilting his nose into her hair. “It’s ok to just be who you are.”  
  
She didn’t respond, but after a moment, her hands snaked up his back, nails sharp against his shoulder blades. They stayed that way a long while, neither speaking, but finally Natasha let him go, easing away and snatching her popcorn again, holding the bowl between them. Steve shifted on the sofa so she had more room.  
  
“Ballistics came back on those bullets from our mystery shooter,” Natasha said, leaning back and slinging her legs over his. “You get three guesses and the first two don’t count.”  
  
“Soviet slugs, no rifling?”  
  
Natasha hummed and tilted her head back. “I think…” she said slowly, dropping another piece of popcorn in her mouth, “I think there’s hope yet.”  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few notes: I borrowed various past members of the Thunderbolts for this chapter, if you're wondering where I pulled the villains' names from. I've tweaked their origins and super powers to suit my own needs, though. In the comics, Moonstone is decidedly not bulletproof, but I've made her conveniently bulletproof here for added drama. I really have no idea if Songbird's powers would affect a deaf person or not, but for the purposes of Because I Said So, I'm going with no, they wouldn't. La la la la, I can't hear your perfectly logical counter-arguments.
> 
> Find me on [tumblr](http://arukou-arukou.tumblr.com/) for more fannish squealing and writing snippets.


	7. Operation Off Into the Sunset

When Steve got home from the soup kitchen, the sun was just setting and the wind was growing chilly. Autumn was just making herself known and he wished he’d brought a coat.  
  
“Welcome home, Captain Rogers,” JARVIS intoned when he stepped in the private elevator. “Your presence has been requested in the penthouse.”  
  
“Oh? Team business?”  
  
JARVIS remained silent and Steve felt a sliver of fear in his belly. The AI wouldn’t refuse to answer without very good reason. The elevator climbed, and while Tony had made it rather faster than the average civilian elevator, it still took about a minute to go from ground floor to the top, and a minute was more than enough time for Steve to flip over scenarios.  
  
They still hadn’t found Melissa Gold, Karla Sofen, and Sybil Dvorak, and given how powerful they had seemed, Steve still felt nervous about it. Especially given Karla had shrugged off a bullet the same way most people shrugged off a mosquito. Or it could be Hydra, who was counterintuitively growing bolder in their terrorism rather than hiding in the shadows to lick their wounds. Or it could be some new threat he hadn’t even considered yet.  
  
By the time the elevator doors slid open, Steve had worked himself into proper battle mode and he stepped into the penthouse fully prepared to plan an op. But he found the floor deserted, not an Avenger in sight.  
  
“JARVIS?” he said slowly, but there was no answer from the AI. _Trap_ , his mind whispered and he dropped down, crouching into a battle stance. It was then that he noticed the paper at his feet, taped haphazardly to the carpet.  
  
“THIS WAY!” it read, a block arrow pointing to his left, a little smiley face in the corner.  
  
Steve stared at it a moment, eyebrow raised, and then slowly peeled it off the floor. “JARVIS,” he said again, eyes darting around the penthouse, “can you at least verify that all of my teammates are alive and safe and snickering in a corner somewhere?”  
  
“While I cannot say they are snickering, Captain, I can verify that they are alive and unharmed.”  
  
Sighing and straightening, Steve rubbed at his forehead. While he’d enjoyed volunteering at the soup kitchen, the surprise attack from the paparazzi afterward had given him a phantom headache that was most assuredly not being helped along by whatever his teammates were up to. “Please tell them I am very irritated with them and will be exacting revenge.”  
  
“I believe that alerting them to your plans for revenge will likely encourage counter-measures. Instead, I suggest you allow me to help you in your planning and surprise them when they least expect it.”  
  
“I like the way you think, JARVIS,” Steve said as he worked his way deeper into the penthouse. There was another arrow taped to the wall on the other side of the living room, this time adorned with a little doodle of a cat.  
  
“We don’t even own a cat,” Steve muttered as he peeled the sign down and followed it. A trail of arrows eventually led him to rooftop access, and he opened the door into the stairwell with some trepidation, expecting perhaps a falling bucket of water or a paint bomb or anything really. But the stairs were empty and the lights were dim.  
  
Another sign was waiting for him at the top of the stairs, and it read simply “BIG SMILE!” a sketch below it showing another face with an exaggeratedly large, toothy grin. Out of spite, Steve put on his best irritated frown and opened the door. As expected, a camera flashed in his face as the Avengers yelled “Surprise!”  
  
“This is priceless,” Sam immediately added, staring down at the photo on his phone. “We could use this for PSAs. ‘Don’t do drugs, kids. Captain America will frown at you.’”  
  
“What the fuck, guys? It’s not even my birthday,” Steve said as they hauled him further onto the balcony.  
  
“So we can’t just have a surprise party for you for the hell of it?” Clint asked, grinning up at him.  
  
“No,” Steve said, sounding every inch the 96 years old he actually was.  
  
“Well then,” said Natasha, stepping up to him with her hands on her hips. “Maybe we can have one because there’s a very special guest here to see you.”  
  
Before Steve could respond, the Avengers had hands on his shoulders and arms, spinning him. On the opposite side of the roof, so near the edge it made Steve’s stomach swoop with fear, Bucky Barnes stood. The sun was setting behind him, and the edges of his silhouette were on fire with orange and gold. Somewhere along the line, someone had trimmed his hair back down to army regulation, and he’d almost look young again if it weren’t for the guarded, distant expression in his eyes.  
  
“Hey, Stevie,” he said, voice low. The wind carried it to Steve, who stood frozen, all of his teammates hands now supporting him.  
  
“Hi, Buck,” he whispered in reply. He could feel his heartbeat in his chest, hard and strained against his ribcage, but for the life of him he couldn’t seem to take even one step forward.  
  
After what seemed an age, Bucky hesitantly crossed the space to Steve, his face drawn tight, lips downturned at the corners. His eyes dropped and then he looked back up again, trying for a smile and failing. “Sorry it took so long. And sorry I tried to kill you. I wasn’t…wasn’t quite right in the head. ‘M still not quite right in the head, but…”  
  
Steve lurched forward and pulled Bucky into his arms, wrapping his arms tight and prepared to feel a knife in his ribs. It would be worth it. But instead, after a few seconds, Bucky hesitantly reached up and patted Steve’s back, simultaneously awkward and reassuring.  
  
“How are you here?” Steve asked, not daring to open his eyes lest Bucky disappear like a ghost again.  
  
“Well, Natalia’s pretty convincing when she wants to be.”  
  
At that, Steve eased up and turned, catching Natasha’s eyes. She smiled softly at him and then shifted, arm gesturing behind her.  
  
“We’ve got barbecue. Tony ordered meat, meat, and more meat, so I think even you might be rolling on the ground by the end of this smorgasbord.”  
  
“Damn right,” said Tony, grinning. He tilted down his sunglasses and slung his arm around Pepper. “Let’s get this party started.”  
  
Steve slowly eased his hold on Bucky and stepped back, eyes traveling around his team as they all drifted to the grill. Sam was fishing beers out of a cooler, and he tossed one to Steve while Thor proffered a jacket.  
  
“The chill is drawing down, Steven. I fear you’ll need this before long.”  
  
Pepper laughed at something Clint said, the sounding ringing clarion in the evening air. Maria Hill was there, too, slicing a melon, and as Steve watched the flash of War Machine’s repulsors appeared on the horizon.  
  
Natasha snatched his wrist and urged him into a lawn chair, pushing Bucky down beside him. “Wait right there and I’ll bring you a pile of flesh,” she said, grin sharp.  
  
Steve caught her hand before she could turn away. “Hey,” he said softly, looking up at her. “You finally managed to set me up on a good date.”  
  
“I did?” she said, quirking an eyebrow.  
  
“Yeah. A date with my team.”  
  
“No,” Clint said, drawing long and warbling on the “o”. “Don’t say that. You’ll curse us. You don’t understand. There’ll be—“  
  
From down in the financial district, an explosion reverberated, a plume of smoke and fire blooming into the air. All of the Avengers turned in unison, watching the fireball dissipate into the evening air.  
  
“Fuck. You,” Clint said, waving a finger in Steve’s face. “You just had to go and say it.”  
  
Rhodey buzzed the roof and shouted, “What are you waiting for, slow pokes?”  
  
Steve was already turning toward the door, and he felt a thrill to realize Bucky was following on his heels alongside the rest of his team. “Avengers,” he called, and they raised their voices in reply, battle cry echoing up into the night.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://arukou-arukou.tumblr.com/) for more fannish squealing and writing snippets.


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